Which photoshop do I buy? Elements, CS4?? Help!!

[littlebeesmom]

I'm fairly new to photography and with no professional photography training, I'm learing as I go, using books, sites like this, etc. My fiance bought photoshop elements 7 for me on christmas since I had just bought my D40. As I keep learning and reviewing the "post production" articles, I find that I can't do everything due to Elements. My question is: can anyone explain to me what the difference between the photoshop, photoshop elements, photoshop CS4, photoshop lightroom etc are? As someone new to photography, which one would be better?

Any help would be appreciated.

Edith

[SusanH1970]

I use Elements 7 and love it. What specifically are you trying to do that you can't with Elements?

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by littlebeesmom

can anyone explain to me what the difference between the photoshop, photoshop elements, photoshop CS4, photoshop lightroom etc are?

"Photoshop" by itself would almost always mean CS4 or one of its predecessors. Full Photoshop.

Photoshop Elements is a low-cost editing package aimed at the average snapshooter. Originally a stripped-down version of Photoshop, it now has a number of features that full Photoshop doesn't have. (Some might call those the "for Dummies" features, either in an affectionate or pejorative way.)

Photoshop CS4 is the current version of full Photoshop. It's a graphic design tool that is generally accepted as providing the most power of any currently available editing package. However, much of that power is aimed toward graphic design rather than photographic "dark room" work.

Lightroom is Adobe's software for the serious photographer. It was designed as a photography tool, not a graphic design tool. It is particularly good at dealing with large shoots (you might be surprised to hear that some pros shoot 1000 or more photos in a single day).

As someone new to photography, which one would be better?

That depends on what you want/need to do. Me, I virtually never post-process my photos so I don't use any of them, and have an old copy of Elements 3 that serves if I need to do any editing. Other people treat their photos as artwork and couldn't live without full Photoshop. Still others shoot and process so many photos that they can't imagine life without Lightroom.

All of those products are available with 30-day free trials. Download them and see what you think. I recommend that you not download them all at once, though, because I doubt that you can learn your way around all of them in 30 days.

[Nathan deGargoyle]

If you haven't already started ascending the Adobe learning curve why not try GIMP? It's free, it's better than elements and almost as good as Phot$haft and if you aren't already sucked in by P$'s workflow it's a good way to start learning without having to fork out $$$$$$$$$$. And there are lot's of enthusiast websites to guide you through the learning experience as well as one or two here who are only to glad to help.

[littlebeesmom]

On of the things that I've been trying to do is the "dualtone", perhaps I just don't know how to do it on Elements.

[littlebeesmom]

Thanks so much for the replies, especially Doug Pardee, that was a great and very educational response! Thank you very much everyone.

[Free]

As someone that has a lot of leaning invested in Photoshop I have to second Nathans idea of Gimp! I wish I could switch, but every time I try it takes me forever to do something that I can do in mere seconds with Photoshop. I know it's all what I'm used to, but I just dont have the time to learn how to use Gimp, if there was a class nearby I'd do it, I'd love to save all the dollars I keep giving to Adobe. (Plus I'm a huge fan of open source!)

Otherwise, as someone else mentioned download the free trials to see what you like and stick with that.

Cheers
Free

[fletch]

Photoshop Elements can do 90-95% of what the average photographer could ever need. You may have to utilise the odd work around or one or two free plug ins to replicate something Photoshop can do but it can be done, unless you really need full Photoshop profesionally or for a specific aspect of your hobby I wouldn't stump up the $1000 it costs. Spend it on a lens instead!

Where PS Elements is a lot weaker that full PS is RAW development. Elements has a cut down version of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) which is better than 95% of editors out there, but nowhere near a good as the full version of ACR. This is where lightroom comes in.

Lightroom is the an excelent photography cataloging program that just happens to have the awesome ACR development program built in. If you shoot RAW it really is the best thing since sliced bread, if not it is probably overkill.

I personally do 90% of my editing in Lightroom and then use PSE6 if I need to do some pixel level edits.

I would recomend starting with PSE and if you shoot RAW consider Lightroom (although even that is expensive). Only get full Photoshop (currently verision CS4) if you know exactly why you need it and have reached the limit of PSE.

[jhud81]

I originally bought Elements (version 4 at the time) and loved it, but when I got CS2, I loved that more. It is true that Elements will carry out a lot of the features found on CS but frankly, I would never go back to using it again.

Each to their own I suppose.

[windrider86]

Have you given any thoughts to Corel products? I use Paint Shop Pro Ultimate and also have Cs3. Paint Shop, I have found cand o anything Photoshop can do is less than a hundred dollars vs 6-700 for Photoshop
You can try it for free for 30 days to see if you like it