Is a PSE6 a good fit?

[ShaneR]

Hey, all.

I'm new to the community and I may stick around depdending on your answer to my question ;)

Anyway, A few months back I decided to get into photography and purchased a Nikon D40 (I've been shooting RAW). I've since been doing two things: 1) Learning about photography and 2) Learning about digital post processing. Number 1 is going MUCH smoother than number 2.

This is where I stand now...

I have a trial of Lightroom installed. This has been great fun to work with and, by far, the easiest program for post processing I've tried. Now, from what I've read, there will come a point (probably) that a photographer will need to do something in Photoshop that can't be done in Lightroom.

So, in those cases where I need PS, would PSE6 do the trick?? Would I be giving anything up in terms of photo quality by using PSE6 over CS3? I can't imagine purchasing CS3 as I'm trying to spend as little time post-processing as possible (ie: I have no plans to drastically alter an image, just improve it as simply as possible).

I also have a trial of Capture NX that I like as well. So, I'm not sure what my workflow is finally going to look like once I figure all this out...



Thanks for the help :)

[GaryK]

Hi Shane

For the money Lightroom and PE6 will be hard to beat.

Now editing in elements does pretty much restrict you to 8 bit files and rbg so if you need cmyk and/or 16 bit it won't do.

[ShaneR]

Thanks for the quick reply, Gary.

That brings up another question: What's to be gained (or lost) by editing in 8bit vs 16 bit? Not quite sure how differences in bits correspond to digital photography, I guess..

[ShaneR]

Sorry to bump my own thread, but I just wanted to say I ended up purchasing both Lightroom and PSE6.

The decision on Lightroom was a no brainer (I love the program), but thanks to this forum I felt very good jumping into PSE6...it's will be a great resource when I need it (Even if I don't, it's been kinda fun to poke around in the editor ;) )

Thanks for the great threads here, guys (and girls) :)

[Inspeqtor]

Hello Shane,

Welcome to the friendliest forum on the net! :)

[ChampOzark]

I'm fairly new too. I've been reading the forum for a year or so, but finally joined a couple days ago.

Just wanted to say I'm envious. Sounds like you have a very nice Camera-Software set-up now. Enjoy!

[Elemobe]

Shane, Welcome to the forum and have to say, I think you have just made a great decision.

I love Lightroom and PSE6 will be all you need by the sounds of it.

[ShaneR]

Thanks for the welcome, folks :)

Now that I have the software side of things ironed out, I can concentrate on just learning and not what to learn with.

I'm sure you will see some questions come from me on an annoyingly regular basis ;)

[sfd301]

Hello and welcome, good luck with both and the new DSLR. You may not be happy to have heard that NIKON has announced the D60, but that is how it goes...lol.

The D40 is nice, but I'm sure you'll be graduating in no time up the chain.

geo

[ShaneR]

Thanks, Geo :)

Yep, I heard about the D60 from a Nikon forum I visit. Can't say it's really anything worth getting excited about. Not much of an upgrade from the D40/D40X by the looks of it :)

Anyway, I don't get concerned about new technology...a person can go crazy (and broke) trying to keep up.

I have a lot to learn still and the D40 is more than enough camera for me...although, If I had money to burn, the D3 would be tempting ;)