Photoshop Elements

[photo_chick]

PSE is a photo editing program. Lightroom is a photo organizing and developing program. They are complimentary and they have a lot of overlap, but there is a lot that is different as well.

I use both Photoshop and Lightroom and love them both.

Ahhh, organization! That explains why I can find my images now that I started using Lightroom and became obsessed with keywording!

 

[GrumpyOne]

Most of my editing has been adjusting levels and removing "spots" (particulate matter) that show up. I've been wanting to learn lighting, sharpening, etc. Once I start shooting in RAW, I expect to want to modify more things, like white balance.

Thanks for the info, it sounds like it's not something that I need yet.

KrazyPete, unfortunately, I have a 3rd world ISP that hasn't recovered from the cable cut off Taiwan around Christmas. I'd have gone to another but they all want 2-year contracts and since I'm moving this summer, figured I'd just put up with it until then. The upshot is that large downloads are problematic and even short page-loads, like here, have an excessive delay. Thanks for the link to the PS Users site though.

 

[KrazyPete]

Most of my editing has been adjusting levels and removing "spots" (particulate matter) that show up. I've been wanting to learn lighting, sharpening, etc. Once I start shooting in RAW, I expect to want to modify more things, like white balance.

This stuff is what Lightroom does very well

The upshot is that large downloads are problematic and even short page-loads, like here, have an excessive delay. Thanks for the link to the PS Users site though.

Well, I'll try to do a little better to explain it then. Lightroom lets you import the photos from your camera as soon as you connect it. On import you can do things like rename the files and add tags.

Once you are in Lightroom you have a library where you can organize your pictures. You have flags for "pick" and "reject" so that you can quickly separate the "keepers" from the rest (then you can delete the rejects all at one time). You group your photos into collections and can even stack similar photos so they don't take up so much space in the thumbail view. You can add individual tags to certain pictures and give them a star rating so you can sort them later.

To me, the develop module has much easier controls when compared to doing the same work in Photoshop. You can adjust you exposure, temperature, sharpness etc with slider. In some cases, you can do it by clicking and dragging on the histograms. It has a great cropping tool and another one to fix red eye. To correct white balance you can grab a picker then click on a space in the photo that you know is neutral. I had a photo that was a little off and I fixed the white balance by telling Lightroom to use a person's white socks as it's reference point for neutral. You can also grab a color and adjust just that color. Let's say you want greener grass in your photo. you grab the color picker, click the grass and drag it until you get the intensity you like.

The develop module is aptly named. This is where you do most of your work in Lightroom and it lets you do the things you would normally do when developing film. It does not have Photoshop's editing tools. There's no clone tool an no scissors. Layers are gone too. You can't cut and paste someone into a photo who wasn't there. There is a tool for red eye, but I don't believe there is one for dust. So if you need to edit a photo then you need Photoshop. If you need to organize and color correct your photos, Photoshop can do that but Lightroom was designed from the ground up to do that better.

There are two more modules in Lightroom. The print module makes it a breeze to set up contact sheets. And, the web module let's you make web galleries to display your photos online.

All the editing you do in Lightroom is "non-destructive." It doens't touch your originals. I have Photoshop CS2 and Lightroom. I've used for Photoshop for 10+ years. 99% of the work I do on my photos now gets done in Lightroom.

 

[GrumpyOne]

That sounds like good stuff. I don't have anywhere near your level of experience with the products but I know I already have a ton of photos and don't see that going down.

 

[manning]

Does this work if you are scanning old photos and slides?

 

[photo_chick]

Does this work if you are scanning old photos and slides?

When you import your folder of scans into lightroom you can do all the keywording, etc. This has been very helpful to me in organizing the thousands of my Dad's slides I scanned last year. The develop tools work like they would for any other jpg file. But again, if you have major dust or scratches to fix you will need Photoshop also.

 

[jann1033]

That sounds like good stuff. I don't have anywhere near your level of experience with the products but I know I already have a ton of photos and don't see that going down.

if you are planning to shoot mostly raw pse is not the best for that...presently i have pse5 but use the canon digital photo pro raw software to adjust the raw photos as the pse5 raw processor is pretty basic . that works fine for me,i download the photos to the pse5 organizer , then just open the canon software to process then send it to pse5 editor to do things like cropping or healing ...i downloaded but never used lightroom( but found it confusing the little bit i looked at it but can't say i really tried hard to get it ) so can't talk about that. i like the elements fine for tagging etc but when i moved them i lost all my tags so that was a waste. i think you can only save tagged photos in the organizer and so that means to much space on my hard drive right now for me..i'm going to be upgrading my computer and using this one just for photos and retag then.till then it's a pain to find anything i moved.

 

[photo_chick]

I used to use the Canon Digital Photo Pro. It is a nifty litle application and considering it is free when you get your Canon, can't beat that! THE Zoom Browser is not bad fo hunting for RAW files either. However, for processing RAW I find Lightroom is a big step up from it though. I have gone back and "reprocessed" images I did before and they actually noticeably different in some casesnow processed in Lightroom. It did take me a little to get used to the user interface, but really it is quite intuitive, IMO.

I think each application for processing RAW does it differently. Some handle day shots better, some handle night shots better. One might be better at reducing noise than another. Although since I got Lightroom I find that I don't need to use different applications, it really gets the job done for me.

But as I often say, it is all subjective and what works for me might not work for someone else!

 

[jann1033]

how does the gimp compare with these? I just downloaded that since it's free and was recommended here and i think cnet( or somewhere)...i wish i had played around more with lightroom but at the time i was so confused having never used any software but kodak what ever it's called( ie crop and resize basic stuff) it was way way way over my head, now it would be 1 1/2 ways over my head i also got a oneclick converter from a friend but haven't done much yet with that either. i need to get moving on these i guess.

op, just my view naturally but for 70 i might go with lightroom ...my major problems with pse5 are it needs more space than they say...they say 512 mb which is what i have but once you have a large catalog( ie my 10,000+ photos) it is slow slow slow...then it won't save edited photos etc. that is why i ended up having to get an external hard drive and moving everything off my internal hard drive( photos i mean) and although i moved them exactly as pse5 said to move to retain all the info, lost it all( the tags etc, not all the photos) and now have to use my backup disks to even get some of my photos...i just can not say i am thrilled with the overall product although i love the basic set up and ease of use, it falls way flat in other important areas, ie larger catalogs...i thought it was my lack of computer skills but have read of others with the same problems...now that most things are off line it 's running better but i think i have around 1000 photos in the main drive catalog now and it is bogging down again.( still able to edit and save so not sure if that was due to the large catalog, the download from adobe i had to keep reinstalling, the bug they fixed after denying it existed or the full moon) so i have been downloading everything to my f drive which takes forever to pull up and i can not do anything with any of them via the organizer in either the main or external drive even though they are listed as being in the folders, it can't find them ( i can open them in documents then go to editor to mess with them, that way it bypasses the organizer somehow) ...just not the best set up imo, specifically if your computer is not an up to the min., huge memory beast. i will also say i didn't have these problems with pse4 although my catalog wouldn't have been as big either.

 

[mabas9395]

This may have been implied in a prior post, but can someone confirm for me that Lightroom handles Canon's RAW files without any problems?

And when you tag a photo, does the tag information stay within the photo or within the application? Meaning if I spend a ton of time tagging my photos with Lightroom, then years from now discover a better application, will I have to tag everything over again or is the possibility there that the new application can read the tags because they are imbedded into the foto file?

 

[MarkBarbieri]

This may have been implied in a prior post, but can someone confirm for me that Lightroom handles Canon's RAW files without any problems?

Yes. Lightroom will work with RAW files form any Canon camera currently on the market (possibly excepting the 1DM3). When Canon introduces new models, there is sometimes a short delay before Adobe reverse engineers the format and starts supporting it.

I suppose that there is a chance that Canon has released some obscure camera with RAW capabilities that isn't supported, but I'm not aware of any. It certainly supports the Rebel series ( , XT, XTi) and the D30/D60/10D/20D/30D series.

Here is the page listing supported RAW formats.

And when you tag a photo, does the tag information stay within the photo or within the application? Meaning if I spend a ton of time tagging my photos with Lightroom, then years from now discover a better application, will I have to tag everything over again or is the possibility there that the new application can read the tags because they are imbedded into the foto file?

It depends. It definitely embeds the keywords into any photo that it generates (like exporting a JPG). It also stores the keywords in DNG files (DNG is an Adobe created standard for RAW files). If you are using your camera's native RAW format and not DNG, the keywords are not written to the RAW file and are stored in a sidecar file instead.

I haven't looked yet, but I would be surprised if there aren't ways to export your Lightroom library (including keywords) to a text or XML file.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

A really good way to learn about lightroom is the the tutorial produced by Luminous Landscape. You can download it for $14.95. It's about 4.5 hours of training video.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/LR-V1.shtml

 

[mabas9395]

I have been looking for something to do a better job of managing my photos. Looks like this may be it. I see the $199 pricing is only good until the end of the month, after 4/30/07 it goes up to $299. I have been saving up for the 70-200 f/2.8 but I may have to dip into my lens fund. What's the point of taking sharp, beautiful photos if you can't find them once they're on your hard drive?

 

[Amy]

I got Elements 4 for Christmas; I made my first backup disks of my pictures back on 01/13/07, and it took 8 disks. This was 8 disks to back up ALL my pictures from 2004 thru Jan. 2007. (I'd been copying various photo files to disks all along, but I decided to do it thru Photoshop and copy everything.)

I'm trying to be a responsible photographer, so today I decided to back up my pictures again. I chose the Incremental backup in Elements, followed all the prompts, inserted one of the disks from my January backup when it asked me to. I assumed Elements would read whatever "code" it put on those disks so it would know which pictures were already backed up and would only copy pictures that were new since my Jan 13, 2007 backup.

Then it told me to insert a new disk to begin the backup, and it said that this Incremental backup would take 12 disks!! What gives?? 8 disks to backup tons of pix from 2004 thru Jan 13, and now it wants 12 disks from Jan 13 to April 28??? I didn't take that many pictures - we haven't even gone on vacation yet!!!

Has anyone else had this problem? I know I can choose only certain folders to copy to disk, but I'd like to keep doing my backups thru Elements, and this incremental backup sounded like the perfect thing so I wouldn't have to keep track of which folders had new pictures.

I closed Elements and started over just to be sure I followed directions exactly and the same thing happened - it says it'll need 12 disks. Needless to say, I canceled the backup for today; we only have about 10 disks anyway.

Can somebody help me?

 

[photo_chick]

I don't use the photoshop option to back up my photos. I go in and just burn data dvd's of the files, usually I use Nero to do it.

 

[KaitlinsMom]

YES YES YES!!!!! I have had this EXACT same problem - I have Elements 4 as well - I haven't really researched this issue on the web, but now that I know I am not the only one, I think I will -

I did everything properly the first time - Elements confirmed that the back-up was created successfully - So I know that wasn't it. I have even checked the disc to make sure -

If you happen to find out, please post what you find out!

A sigh of relief to know I am not the only one!

Karen

PS - I have been doing what Danielle says she also does - I just burn using my burner software (Nero I think) But I would like to be able to back up photos that I have edited since the last time I backed-up - There is no way I could remember which ones I have "enhanced" since the last back-up.

 

[MICKEY88]

I don't use the photoshop option to back up my photos. I go in and just burn data dvd's of the files, usually I use Nero to do it.

I do the same I like to categorize my pics on disk...


i also then remove the pics from my pc to free up space. so next time I burn disks it's really easy to know what has been burned or not...

 

[jann1033]

i never tried an incremental backup with pse4 but with pse5 i have read ( and had the problem myself) with the incremental backup not working right..a few times it won't recognize my discs made by pse5 and wants to make them all over again i found i have the most problem when my catalog is larger, like 4000+ so now when i download i download some to my internal drive( original raw files) and some to my external drive( the ones i have edited) so my catalog isn't as big. so far the last few incremental backups have worked...we'll see if it keeps working or not

 

[Amy]

YES YES YES!!!!! I have had this EXACT same problem - I have Elements 4 as well - I haven't really researched this issue on the web, but now that I know I am not the only one, I think I will -

I did everything properly the first time - Elements confirmed that the back-up was created successfully - So I know that wasn't it. I have even checked the disc to make sure -

If you happen to find out, please post what you find out!

A sigh of relief to know I am not the only one!

Karen

PS - I have been doing what Danielle says she also does - I just burn using my burner software (Nero I think) But I would like to be able to back up photos that I have edited since the last time I backed-up - There is no way I could remember which ones I have "enhanced" since the last back-up.

Thank you! I feel better knowing I'm not the only one. Like you said, I'd like to use the incremental backup because I can't remember which photos I've played with since my last backup. I've been taking an Elements class at our community college, so I've been trying out diff. things on various photos on my computer, so my updated/enhanced photos are in diff. folders.

If I don't have time today to research this (beautiful weather - I want to be OUTSIDE!), I'll see if I can find out anything tomorrow. It's so frustrating when you have this program that can do something really useful and you follow the directions exactly and it still doesn't work.

 

[photo_chick]

PS - I have been doing what Danielle says she also does - I just burn using my burner software (Nero I think) But I would like to be able to back up photos that I have edited since the last time I backed-up - There is no way I could remember which ones I have "enhanced" since the last back-up.

If I am just tweaking colors, levels or whatever in Lightroom or Photoshop I don't worry about backing those up. But if I make major changes I have a seprate folder for edited images. Makes backing that up really easy. I also toss my "to print" file in there. I print my 4x6 images on 13x19 sheets (saves $$) so I save each of the "collections" on a sheet in a "print me" folder so it is easy to print later.

Funny, my photos are so organized but my house is a landfill.... priorites!