What Photoshop version should I get?

[jsl]

Hi all,

I'm getting to the stage in my photography where I would like to play and learn to do some post production stuff. What piece of software should I buy? I'm having trouble comparing what each of these actually do...

- Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 £63
- Adobe Photoshop Extended CS4 Student Edition £125
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 £213

I would ordinarily just get the cheapest but would it be worth getting the CS4 Student Edition (I become a student again in September!!). I'm particularly interested in merging multiple identical shots by unmasking images (e.g. to create an action sports photo).

Thank you for your help!

[Jim Bryant]

Get these:
Adobe Photoshop Extended CS4 Student Edition £125
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 £213

[velvet4269]

I was recently shown lightroom (friend of mine has it), and really liked some of the features it has - particularly, key-word tagging.

Of course, I'm broke, and need a new computer before I can even think about buying new software ...

[MoonRunX]

I noticed we talked about what helicopters, tanks and fighters Romania should buy.
What about anti-tank weapons systems?

[Trader]

Go with CS4 and you won't have any limitations.

Word of caution! SOME of the "Student Versions" of Photoshop come with a license that will expire after 365 days. Make sure you don't get that one because after a year you have to buy a new license to keep using the software.

[Avandria]

I agree with Jim, get the CS4 and Lightroom - both are extremly useful (not that elements isn't but I find CS4 to be a better choice for me).

[jsl]

Thanks for your comments guys! I get the impression that Lightroom is similar to Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery on my Vista and I'm fairly content with that at the moment.

Thanks for the 365 day warning with CS4 Student Edition - I hadn't thought of that but will double check.

Based on your comments, I reckon I'll just get CS4 to start with and then see how I get on from there on... Still not sure what Elements does but none of you has recommended it so I'll ignore it for now.

[wulf]

How budget is your budget? If you want to keep costs right down (or if, for other reasons, you have an interest in Open Source software), you could try The Gimp. It's free, so you can start work right away and, even if you decide that you eventually want to learn other software, it will give you a start on image editing with features such as multiple layers, adjustment curves, etc.

Wulf

[jsl]

Originally Posted by wulf

How budget is your budget? If you want to keep costs right down (or if, for other reasons, you have an interest in Open Source software), you could try The Gimp. It's free, so you can start work right away and, even if you decide that you eventually want to learn other software, it will give you a start on image editing with features such as multiple layers, adjustment curves, etc.

Wulf

Thanks Wulf! Downloading in progress right now! I'm a banker (now ex-banker) and soon to be student so £0 is what I define as a good deal ;-)

I think I need to learn about the different techniques and terminology first. In a similar post, it's one of the reasons why I am forcing myself to stick to my cheapy EF 28-80 and EF 80-200 lenses. The Gimp will be great to learn that stuff. I have been using Paint.NET up to now.

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by jsl

Thanks Wulf! Downloading in progress right now! I'm a banker (now ex-banker) and soon to be student so £0 is what I define as a good deal ;-)

I think I need to learn about the different techniques and terminology first. In a similar post, it's one of the reasons why I am forcing myself to stick to my cheapy EF 28-80 and EF 80-200 lenses. The Gimp will be great to learn that stuff. I have been using Paint.NET up to now.

You can also download (for free) UFRaw, to do some of your editing in raw. It is compatible with gimp.

There are over 100 good tutorials on gimp at www.meetthegimp.org . You might want to check it out.