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Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements (Read 11455 times)

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Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 07, 2013, 08:29:39 pm
Hiya,

I'm currently using Photoshop Elements 4 on a creaky 8.5 year-old Mac but will soon be getting an amazing new shiny Mac and will be upgrading my photo editing software accordingly.  :bounce:

I'm probably best described as a keen amateur at photography- I decided to get an LX5 instead of a DSLR a year or so ago as I realised that I wasn't committed enough to lug big gear around and was happy to deal with the limitations of a fixed-lens job. But I always take pictures when I go out and get a lot of satisfaction from gradually getting better results. I won't rule out getting more into it but I don't have plans to start trying to sell my pictures or anything like that.

Looking at the software options for my new computer I can upgrade to the newest version of Elements for about £60 while Lightroom will set me back £100ish. I know Lightroom is popular on here but is anyone experienced enough with both to offer an opinion on whether I should bother spending the extra £40?

Thanks!

Johnny Brown

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#1 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 07, 2013, 09:41:25 pm
Lightroom is amazing. I haven't used elements for years but LR compares pretty well with full PS nowadays, for pure photography at least. Not only does it do pretty much everything I need to develop RAW files through to printing, or ftp delivery to websites, it also enables organising your files better than any other program.

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#2 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 07, 2013, 09:48:26 pm
Tricky one for where you're at. As JB says the organisation and cataloguing features in LR are very powerful, and that's before you get into Develop etc.

That said, the current version of Elements is incredibly powerful too, it features pretty much all the important stuff for photographers from PS, the only exception being you're limited to working in RGB (not CMYK). I doubt that's an issue.

My advice: download and fully use the 30 day trials for both and see how you get on.

dave

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#3 Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 07, 2013, 11:51:27 pm
Try Aperture, its fucking good.

slackline

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#4 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 08, 2013, 06:26:32 am
Don't bother forking out for something you can own when you can 'subscribe' and pay forever to use cloud software.


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#5 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 09:53:18 am
Don't bother forking out for something you can own when you can 'subscribe' and pay forever to use cloud software.

Eh?  Are you being funny?  (a) it's not cloud software, that's just shit, I don't call installing it on your own PC fucking cloud, and (b) are you being funny?

To the OP:
* Photoshop is for proper retouching - e.g. the liquify tool, faking skies, that kind of stuff

* Lightroom is for what I would term "finishing" rather than retouching.  If you shoot raw, then you can do all the usual stuff with the exposure, graduated exposure, lens effect correction, etc. plus it gives you all the organisation and selection tools you might want.

So it depends what you want to use it for.  They're different tools really.  Personally I use lightroom constantly, but photoshop only a little; also I never use photoshop for something lightroom can do.  So for me, unless you need the features of an upgraded photoshop I would get Lightroom.


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#6 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 09:59:19 am
It was sarcasm at the notion of subscribing to software.

Its Adobes appropriation of the term "cloud", not mine, to mean a group of software products and not its more common meaning (for online storage of server time).

Durbs

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#7 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 10:04:57 am
Don't bother forking out for something you can own when you can 'subscribe' and pay forever to use cloud software.

Eh?  Are you being funny?  (a) it's not cloud software, that's just shit, I don't call installing it on your own PC fucking cloud, and (b) are you being funny?

I believe he was yes...

Anyway, yes depends what you want to do... Elements catalogue is shite. Tries to be clever, generally fails and is slow to the point of being useless. So I midly resent paying for essentially 2 products, the editor and the catalogue when I never use half of it.

LR however doesn't have the tools to dramatically alter photos if that's your bag.

What I've done is buy PSE, then download a free trial of LR or PS and use Adobe Bridge which is very good cataloging/file management system and ties well into PSE, including batch processing which is one of the main benefits of LR. If you never activate the trial versions of LR/PS, Bridge will run indefintely.

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#8 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 10:05:48 am
It was sarcasm at the notion of subscribing to software.

This is far from unique.  I don't get what your beef is.  How do you feel about Redhat then?

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#9 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 10:06:35 am
Alternatively, if you're happy with the steep learning curve - for editing, use GIMP which is free :)

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#10 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 11:03:15 am
It was sarcasm at the notion of subscribing to software.

This is far from unique.  I don't get what your beef is.  How do you feel about Redhat then?

Their circular RPM dependencies are a nightmare (or were when I first encountered them 10+ years ago).

My understanding of their business model is that you subscribe to technical support when purchasing RHEL.  You can still use their software for free without having to pay for support.

Alternatively, if you're happy with the steep learning curve - for editing, use GIMP which is free :)

Alternatives to GIMP include Darktable and Rawtherapee both of which I've found to be far, far better at handling RAW and a gentler learning curve (with GIMP you have to use the UFRaw plugin to handle RAW).

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#11 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 11:19:26 am
Quote
My understanding of their business model is that you subscribe to technical support when purchasing RHEL.  You can still use their software for free without having to pay for support.

Not any more.  You can use fedora for free of course - but that's not quite the same.  You pay a subscription for RHEL, including access to it.

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#12 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 11:24:47 am
Fair enough, I stopped using RedHat about ten years ago so never bothered following changes in their business model as they were of not interest.  I did realise Fedora was from the same people and that CentOS strives to emulate RHEL.

It may be common but I don't 'subscribe' to the notion of subscription software as there are free (and open source) alternatives and I prefer to use them (making donations as and when I choose, just as I donate to some of the forums I use).

 :offtopic:

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#13 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 12:38:33 pm
there are free (and open source) alternatives and I prefer to use them

So, to drag it back on topic: there is no free, open source viable alternative to photoshop and lightroom for professional or semi-professional or serious amateur use.  The GIMP just does not cut it, and believe me as a tight fucker I've tried.

Don't believe me?  I refuse to see how anyone who has used photoshop professionally to use GIMP.  Professional use is down to ease of use too.  Plus there are just things you cannot do (e.g. remove the colour tint from a scanned colour negative) using the GIMP.

The same is true for video editing, although probably not true for real time ray tracing.  Open source is not a panacea, and sweeping statements about it annoy me, sorry.

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#14 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 09, 2013, 01:11:00 pm
Nothing to be sorry about, but I didn't claim open source was a panacea this time, I said it was my choice (well actually I said "I prefer to use them" but thats the same thing).

Have you tried either of the two I suggested above?  I've never really got on with GIMP either and find those far more useable, but having never used Photoshop I can't comment on how they compare to that or other offerings from Adobe.

With regards to video editing (which I don't do any of) there are a number of non-linear video editing suites compared here some of which are released under the GPL (I've installed LiVEs but never used it as I can rarely be bothered to lug my tripod around).  <tangent>Its not really video editing, but whole farms of Linux servers are employed for CGI rendering in Hollywood blockbusters such as Lord of the Rings and others.</tangent>

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#15 Re: Lightroom vs Aperture
May 10, 2013, 03:07:35 pm
Thanks for the all the advice everyone.  :thumbsup:

I now realise that what I need is either Lightroom or Aperture.

To be honest I'll have to find something amazing about Lightroom out to get that as it'll cost me about twice as much as Aperture and Dave seems very keen on the latter, which also seems to have a very appealing-looking interface. I've used GIMP and don't find it particularly great. My past experience with freeware puts me off trying other free options too.

Anyone have any evidence to persuade me otherwise?

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#16 Re: Lightroom vs Aperture
May 10, 2013, 04:02:09 pm
Thanks for the all the advice everyone.  :thumbsup:

I now realise that what I need is either Lightroom or Aperture.

To be honest I'll have to find something amazing about Lightroom out to get that as it'll cost me about twice as much as Aperture and Dave seems very keen on the latter, which also seems to have a very appealing-looking interface. I've used GIMP and don't find it particularly great. My past experience with freeware puts me off trying other free options too.

Anyone have any evidence to persuade me otherwise?
Nope - I use Aperture and like it a lot.

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#17 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 10, 2013, 04:02:49 pm
Lightroom used to be four times the price of Aperture, and the functionality reflects that. I don't know any pros using aperture - Apple sold it as pro software initially, realised they couldn't compete with LR and dropped the price massively. LT has bloated a tad but the RAW ACR engine is the benchmark and gets regularly improved further. Lens correction and soft proofing are unmatched too. 

None of the freeware or bundled manufacturer's are worth even the time you'd waste learning them.

dave

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#18 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 10, 2013, 04:56:46 pm
What parts of Aperture have you found to be sub-par then JB?

I've been playing with this beta release of LR and I'm not finding much in it that I prefer over Aperture.

Lets not forget Aperture is mac-only and hence any discussion about the number of people using it is skewed. Plenty of people use photoshop despite it being bloated, expensive and 99% of users only using 1% of its functionality - doesn't mean its the right tool.

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#19 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 10, 2013, 05:33:29 pm
Sub-par or not as good as Lightroom? I gave it a fair trial when I first bought the mac. It wasn't as good then, and since Adobe have added a load of decent functions to LR which I use all the time, and Apple isn't keeping up. The new processing engine is really impressive, and improved the noise reduction too - just basic everyday stuff done even better. And of course it's cross-platform. I can actually keep the same catalog in my dropbox and open it on either my pc or macbook - pretty impressive.

Whereas pretty much everything Apple have done in the last five years have been away from professional users and towards the mass-market, and towards locking you in. I have no desire to be locked into Apple operating systems in the future.

See here:  http://macperformanceguide.com/AppleCoreRot-intro.html
Including:

Quote
Aperture — so full of display bugs on dual-display systems as to be unusable.

If I was to use Aperture it would be exclusively on a dual display - macbook screens are not profilable. It would have to be a pretty fucking compelling feature set for me to even consider it given that lot. It isn't.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2013, 05:39:28 pm by Johnny Brown »

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#20 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 10, 2013, 09:02:17 pm
And of course it's cross-platform available for two OS's

What I don't get is that having written some software for OSX it should be very easy to port it to any other *NIX based system as OSX is built on BSD.  I expect its probably due to the tipping point of the number of potential paying customers though.

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#21 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 11, 2013, 12:27:40 pm
I can actually keep the same catalog in my dropbox and open it on either my pc or macbook - pretty impressive.


OT, but intrigued by this – sounds like a great idea. Presumably the actual photos are stored locally though, so although you can view the previews in your synced catalogue, you can't make edits to images stored on another computer...?


Have you had any issues with dropbox creating a duplicate of your catalogue when you have it open on two machines?


Anyway, my preference is for Lightroom – it's always had the best raw processing, and the interface, workflow and features are mostly excellent. Aperture is probably good if you value features like face detection and getting pictures onto your iStuff seamlessly.

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#22 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 11, 2013, 01:27:26 pm
Quote
OT, but intrigued by this – sounds like a great idea. Presumably the actual photos are stored locally though, so although you can view the previews in your synced catalogue, you can't make edits to images stored on another computer...?

Have you had any issues with dropbox creating a duplicate of your catalogue when you have it open on two machines?

I've only been playing with it so far, but it works. Yes it will duplicate the catalogue if you edit both at once.

The knowledge is to just have the catalogue in dropbox. Have the files and previews elsewhere. If you set up identical folder structures on both machines it should find all the pictures - just point it at the top level folder a full path.

When I have more time I'm planning to set it up properly so I can access my full catalogue on the macbook. I wouldn't have all the original files, but it would be great to be able to pull selections together and send out lo-res without having to be in the office. I might wait for Lightroom 5 though... it has a new feature aimed at this issue which creates lower res duplicate RAW files (DNGs I think) which you can keep on the laptop, but still edit.

dave

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#23 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 11, 2013, 10:26:57 pm
Sub-par or not as good as Lightroom? I gave it a fair trial when I first bought the mac. It wasn't as good then, and since Adobe have added a load of decent functions to LR which I use all the time, and Apple isn't keeping up. The new processing engine is really impressive, and improved the noise reduction too - just basic everyday stuff done even better. And of course it's cross-platform. I can actually keep the same catalog in my dropbox and open it on either my pc or macbook - pretty impressive.

Sub-par or not as good as Lightroom? I gave it a fair trial when I first bought the mac. It wasn't as good then, and since Adobe have added a load of decent functions to LR which I use all the time, and Apple isn't keeping up. The new processing engine is really impressive, and improved the noise reduction too - just basic everyday stuff done even better. And of course it's cross-platform. I can actually keep the same catalog in my dropbox and open it on either my pc or macbook - pretty impressive.

Whereas pretty much everything Apple have done in the last five years have been away from professional users and towards the mass-market, and towards locking you in. I have no desire to be locked into Apple operating systems in the future.

See here:  http://macperformanceguide.com/AppleCoreRot-intro.html
Including:

Quote
Aperture — so full of display bugs on dual-display systems as to be unusable.

If I was to use Aperture it would be exclusively on a dual display - macbook screens are not profilable. It would have to be a pretty fucking compelling feature set for me to even consider it given that lot. It isn't.

I've sat here with both the most latest Aperture open along with LR5 beta side by side looking at the same RAW files and if there's some monumental raw engine advantage in lightroom compared to aperture then its not making itself known. The main difference I can see is when you open a RAW file lightroom has the sharpening slider dialed up higher by default so at a glance images look crisper until you notice whats going on. If you're doing a lot of lifting deperately dark shadows in RAW then Lightroom seems to claw a bit more detail out of them I'll give you that but seems to introduce more noise, whereas aperture shadows seem to look a bit smoother. Lifting shadows on scanned TIFFs seem identical in LR and aperture, except Aperture seems to be able to lift them further. Aperture seems to handle colour at the high end better from what I can see - looking at some rainbow shots I took the other day the colour definition through the spectrum is better with Aperture. Removing dust spots from scans seems more clumsy and slower in LR having just tried it - for instance once you're into the clone tool and zoomed in to 100% how to you move around the image with the clone tool still open?. Also the ability to locally apply or brush in adjustments on LR seems utterly primitive compared to Aperture.

Lightroom also seems to have no way of switching between jpeg and raw of a pair. So basically if you shoot a shot on say a black&white setting in camera and want to see what that looks like via lightroom you can't as far as I can see unless you manually process it to black&white instead, which of course means you have to know which shots you took intending them to be black&white. So if I went on holiday for a fortnight and shot some black&white shots in with the normal colour stuff then as soon as lightroom gets them it defaults to a colour RAW rendition and hey presto I have no way of telling which of these shots were the ones I intended to be in black&white, unless I opt to import the JPEGs and RAW as seperate files, like its 2006 again. Genius.

I find the general user interface of Aperture better (quicker/easier) and less fussy, faster working with images (lessing computer "thinking about it" time comparing side by side working on big 5x4" scans), the usage of screen real estate better, there's no need for this odd distinction between "library" and "develop" as you can just do what you need to do wherever you are, and of course the seemless syncing of images between iphones and ipads etc is genius. This isn't just a partytrick feature -  I spend more time enjoying my images and sharing with family etc on the ipad than I have ever done with prints, so anything that makes that as effortless as possible is a major selling point. Its piss to maintain these ipad/phone portfolios, - I do this for myself and to show family etc, but it would be the same for business if you're showing to clients. Also any photos you take with your phone also just appear in aperture without you having to sync, transfer or download them which is genius. This is one situation where it really does "just work".

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#24 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 11, 2013, 10:49:11 pm
Quote
for instance once you're into the clone tool and zoomed in to 100% how to you move around the image with the clone tool still open?

Press the spacebar. No idea on the b&w jpegs, not something I do, but I guess some of your issues might be down to familiarity.

Quote
Also any photos you take with your phone also just appear in aperture without you having to sync, transfer or download them which is genius.

Simple enough to do this in LR, it would take about four mouse clicks but you do get a tad more freedom in which computer and phone you can buy. Likewise the flickr/ facebook/ photoshelter publish system in LR is great for sharing. I don't even need to leave LR to ftp stuff to my server.


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#25 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 11, 2013, 11:11:26 pm
Quote
for instance once you're into the clone tool and zoomed in to 100% how to you move around the image with the clone tool still open?

Press the spacebar. No idea on the b&w jpegs, not something I do, but I guess some of your issues might be down to familiarity.

Cheers, spacebar works.

Having read about it, there is no way to toggle between JPEG and RAW in a pair in LR, amazing.

Aperture also has flickr/facebook integration and umpteen plugins available for shit like photoshelter/pbase/gmail/zenfolio/getty/istock/yousendit etc.


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#26 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 15, 2013, 08:54:15 am
The same is true for video editing, although probably not true for real time ray tracing.

BBC using open-source software to replace traditional tape decks in satellite broadcast including the use of FFMBC (a fork of FFMpeg for media and broadcasting) for editing video.


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#27 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 15, 2013, 10:31:36 am
The same is true for video editing, although probably not true for real time ray tracing.

BBC using open-source software to replace traditional tape decks in satellite broadcast including the use of FFMBC (a fork of FFMpeg for media and broadcasting) for editing video.

Er, no.  FFMBC for Media MANIPULATION.  Not editing.  FFMPEG isn't an "editor" from what I can see.

There is a "free" NLE: lightworks.  But it only works on windows (there's a linux alpha/beta/something soon?), and is better described as shareware.  Plus it is, by the reviews I've read, not that great.  I tried it and it was unusable in its free form.


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#28 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
May 15, 2013, 10:54:26 am
It was an interesting story (to me) of custom open-source software being used in media which was (tangentially) related to the topic we were discussing.  Seems to fit into the workflow of manipulating and editing for broadcasting (including HD content during the olympics) as the Raven suite they developed tags audio and video making it available at the next step in the process of broadcasting.

Not an attempt to say "Ooooh, look everyone should start using this" because a) most people won't be running outside broadcasting suites; b) its horses for courses and I don't care what others use as it has no bearing on my choice.


 :offtopic: You can actually use FFMPeg for editing video, but its exceptionally convoluted and done on the command line (far from optimal).  Its also an exceptionally useful player in its own write, and allows you to avoid the codec hell that many people encounter (its sits behind VLC).



Does NLE mean Non-linear Editing in this context?  If so there is more than lightworks, several of which are GPL'd and many that aren't, see the list non-linear editing suites compared I previously linked if you're looking for choices.

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#29 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
June 11, 2013, 10:39:49 pm
Quote
Having read about it, there is no way to toggle between JPEG and RAW in a pair in LR, amazing.

Stumbled on this today. Edit > Preferences > General > Tickbox: 'Treat JPEG files next to RAW files as separate photos'

dave

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#30 Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
June 12, 2013, 06:53:33 am
Yeah i know about that, wouldn't really help unless you're happy to go back to using Bridge in 2006 style of workflow with separate files.

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#31 Re: Lightroom vs Photoshop Elements
June 12, 2013, 08:21:15 am
Well to be honest I don't understand why you'd want to do either. My compact produces jpeg previews for RAWs, but I don't import them.

 

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