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Photoshop Elements (ACR) vs. Lightroom

Chatative

Chatative

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Hi folks,

I've recently decided to start using my D-SLR properly & have started shooting in Raw format. (again... I experimented a bit years ago) I'd had a copy of PSE 12 that came as bonus software on my last laptop, which I'd been using but that laptop got broken so I now longer have a copy of it.

I'm a bit stuck as to whether to opt for getting a copy of Lightroom 5, or PSE 12 again. Are there any real benefits bar the workflow stuff in LR compared to ACR?

I've been using PSE way back since version 4. I'm very familiar with it & I like making use of the filters, especially the artistic ones. I'm led to believe that LR doesn't have much in the way of filters on it? I'm assuming LR also has other features missing that I might be used to from PSE.

Being as photography is just a hobby, I'm inclined to think that PSE would be a better all-around option.

Thoughts? (and what do you use / what are your experiences like with lightroom?)

Cheers. :)
 
.. and there was me getting all excited with an email since I'm subscribed to the thread. Not sure it needed a bump really but, err, thanks! ;)

I decided to just get a copy of PSE 13 in the end. Yet to play around with it too much to see what's new from 12.

I'd still be very interested to hear some feedback on Lightroom though....
 
Well since nobody else is even saying anything, I will put in my two cents. I'll be honest, I have never worked with lightroom 5, or any version of lightroom, in fact I just had to go look it up. I did however go to an art college, and took a few photography classes and learned all about most of the other adobe programs. I am well versed in photoshop and illustrator, and have worked with PSE. In my photography class when we started to get into digital photography we using photoshop CS 5 to play with the raw images, because my school provided full editions of adobe programs.

By my understanding adobe lightroom is similar to PSE in that they are both smaller specialized versions of photoshop. It looks to me like all the features found in both those programs(I know this is true for PSE atleast) are also all in the full version of photoshop. They put PSE and lightroom out for people who dont need all the tools in photoshop, want a simpler user experience and dont want to pay like $500 for one program. The difference is their targeted audience. PSE is literally just a mini photoshop, and retains an more broad focus like photo editing and painting and coloring. Lightroom def looks like its all about processing raw digital images.

Normally I would say stick to the program you know since it can still do the job you want, but if your willing to learn a new program and relatively good at teaching yourself this kind of stuff, then it might be worth while to try out lightroom.
 
nekointheclouds said:
Lightroom def looks like its all about processing raw digital images.

Normally I would say stick to the program you know since it can still do the job you want, but if your willing to learn a new program and relatively good at teaching yourself this kind of stuff, then it might be worth while to try out lightroom.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that article. I'd found similar ones but that one was particularly useful.

I think I probably did the right thing getting PSE for now... it'll allow me to just get to grips with the more 'user friendly' advanced options, that really have much more use when working with raw images as opposed to jpegs. I'm already finding that in using ACR for post-processing, I'm using much the same settings for each photo. I can see how that would work for processing large amounts of files with the likes of LR & then fine tuning a select few.

I'm generally not taking that many photographs at time right now, so it's not too much hassle to work with each individually. Perhaps at some point in the future, I'll get LR & now I have my own copy of PSE, I'll always have access to any of the missing features should I wish.
 
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