PS Elements or Lightroom

d8m

Linked with my new laptop purchase I would like to start taking more photos, I've got a decent camera(d3100) and could do with a bit of software for editing.

Narrowed it down to either PSE or Lightroom. Which one is better suited for amateurs?

RaymondLin

One is for photo manipulation (PS), one is for processing (LR).

LR is also a catalogue program.

They work in tandem with each other but start with LR, I process tens and thousands of photos a year and they all go into LR first, and perhaps 1% will go into PS for more advance stuff.

stickyfiddle

What he said. Unless you already know you need more, you probably need LR. It's great

d8m

Can I use lightroom without the catalogue feature?

Ive always managed my photos myself in Windows explorer folders as I find it makes it easier to back up/recover

wibble

You can get Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC for £8.57/month on the creative cloud photography plan

https://creative.adobe.com/plans?store_code=gb

d8m

wibble said:

You can get Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC for £8.57/month on the creative cloud photography plan

https://creative.adobe.com/plans?store_code=gb

I'd rather buy outright not a fan of subscriptions

stickyfiddle

d8m said:

Can I use lightroom without the catalogue feature?

Ive always managed my photos myself in Windows explorer folders as I find it makes it easier to back up/recover

Not really, because it would defeat the point. But LR works almost exactly like windows explorer in terms of how it looks at folders - it shows you exactly the folder structure that's on your drive. But if you move things around outside of LR it won't know where you've put them unless you tell it. The learning curve it literally 5 minutes and SO worth it.

RaymondLin

d8m said:

Can I use lightroom without the catalogue feature?

Ive always managed my photos myself in Windows explorer folders as I find it makes it easier to back up/recover

It would be pointless doing that because you don't "save" the photo, the point of LR is it never touches the photo, instead if remembers the processing steps you do and saves the steps.  When you export a photo it creates a copy of it.  The original, the RAW file, the negative, is never touched.

Like you do with film, you can process the negative for print, no matter how many print you make, the negative stays the same.   

Also, you can go back every step, no matter how many or how old.

d8m

Ah ok that doesn't sound to bad, LR sounds better suited for what I need than PSE.

how is it on file space?

RaymondLin

d8m said:

Ah ok that doesn't sound to bad, LR sounds better suited for what I need than PSE.

how is it on file space?

Depends how big and how many photos you have.


The "catalogue" size grows with your photo collection.  You can always save and back it up.

d8m

LR might have to wait till next month, double the price of PSE

Fortheloveofguitar

wibble said:

You can get Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC for £8.57/month on the creative cloud photography plan

https://creative.adobe.com/plans?store_code=gb

That's about to go up to £10.10 a month to new users 

wibble

d8m said:

LR might have to wait till next month, double the price of PSE

Just in case you haven't figured out, Adobe software is pretty much all susbcription now. PSE is still available as an outright purchase though. Lightroom 6 was the last version of Lightroom you can buy outright. While it's still supported for bug fixes, new features will only appear in Lightroom CC.

boogieman

My 2p worth is to get Corel Paintshop Pro, it's only £45 from Amazon. Does a lot of what PS will do and is more than powerful enough for amateur photographers. I've used it for years and always found it gives great results and it's easy to use. 

ThePrettyDamned

Everything they've said about Lightroom. It's the go-to. 

I only use photoshop for the occasional shot where I reckon brushing in a Google nik plugin is a good thing, or for retouching (it's far quicker to retouch in photoshop than Lightroom because it works at pixel level). But that's really rare - two photos out of 400 required that for me so far. And they didn't need it... I just like to use it to convince myself I'm not being royally screwed with subscription plan, which will go up in price soon... 

The only other thing photoshop is great for is enlargement. I print at 20x30" or 30x45" sometimes (or equivalent in cropped ratios) which is massive. Photoshop has a clever tool to resize, resharpen and noise reduce when enlarging. 

hywelg

Aftershot Pro is worth a look too. 

d8m

wibble said:

d8m said:

LR might have to wait till next month, double the price of PSE

Just in case you haven't figured out, Adobe software is pretty much all susbcription now. PSE is still available as an outright purchase though. Lightroom 6 was the last version of Lightroom you can buy outright. While it's still supported for bug fixes, new features will only appear in Lightroom CC.

This sucks.

I always like to buy software outright, even it costs more upfront.

Been looking into both and PSE might actually be better for my needs as it gives me a bit of both worlds.

boogieman said:

My 2p worth is to get Corel Paintshop Pro, it's only £45 from Amazon. Does a lot of what PS will do and is more than powerful enough for amateur photographers. I've used it for years and always found it gives great results and it's easy to use. 

This looks interesting, Ive used CorelDraw with work before but not PSP.

Vaiai

I used to work with Photoshop professionally and had it and LR at home nfor my own photography but unless I am doing something semi pro I just use Google's Picasa which is free and does basic touch up and PP. If you decide you really expect to spend more time doing photography then LR is great. And as above - almost all Adobe stuff is subs now.

hywelg

d8m said:

This looks interesting, Ive used CorelDraw with work before but not PSP.

Thats how I found out about Aftershot. I use CorelDraw a lot, have for 24 years.

wibble

Affinity Photo seems to be getting a lot of traction as a PS alternative...

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/

£48.99