Advantages of PSE7 over 5 worth the upgrade

[jray]

I've had PSE5 for a couple of years now and have been quite happy with it. Just wondering if it's worthwhile to upgrade it. I'm also planning to add LR2 soon, which will mean that I wont' use the organizer anymore.

[Wendy]

Why not download a demo version of PSE7 and see what you think of it :)

Wendy

[jray]

Thanks, Wendy, I guess that is an obvious choice. I was just curious about others' experiences.

[TonyW]

I much prefer PSE7 over PSE5. Although there aren't a lot of new features in the Editor one I use a lot is the smart selection brush - it really works well. And I like the dark (but adjustable) background and as you are considering getting LR2 one consideration is that the latest Adobe Camera Raw (5.2) works in PSE7 but, at least according to Adobe, not in PSE5. You need 5.2 to be able to open RAW files that have been edited in LR2 and have all the adjustments show. There are other ways to do it with older versions (by creating intermediate TIFFS or PSD files) but I like being able to open LR2 editied RAW files directly in PSE7 - with an add-on you can also open them as smart objects which means that you can tweak them in LR2 and the tweaks will show up in PSE7.

Tony