Upgrade Decison: Elements 7 or CS4?

[MikeV99]

I have Elements 5, Premier 3, LR 2, and Photoshop CS3.

I am considering upgrading either to Elements 7 or CS4. In looking at the features of Elements 7, it appears to have just about anything a amateur photographer would need and be a little less complicated than CS4. Am I overlooking something that would suggest that CS4 would be a "better" choice than Elements 7?

Thanks

Mike

[Wendy]

Hi Mike ...

It really depends how much you intend to use it ... and to what depth. I would probably suggest that you start ff with Elements and then see if at some later stage you outgrown it ...

... and if you do it that way then, at some stage in the future, you stand a chance of getting a cheaper upgrade to Photoshop.

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

Wendy

[MikeV99]

Since I already own Elements 5 and Photoshop CS3 the cost of upgrading to one or the other is pretty much a wash.

I started with Elements 5 and found it did not have some features that I wanted, hence I moved to CS3. However, Elements 7 seems to have done a good job catching up.

What I was hoping for was some opinions from those that might be heavy users of Elements 7 and/or CS4 to give their comparison thoughts.

Maybe I should ask this in the Elements forum?

Thanks though.

Mike

[Chuck S.]

What features in PSE 7 are you wishing you had? And what features of CS4 represent a step change for you vs. CS3. There are comparison charts on the Adobe website, I seem to recall....

Personally, I have LR2, PSE6, and CS3. I've decided to stand pat; I haven't seen a compelling case to go to either PSE7 or CS4, especially since I've embraced LR2 for the lion's share of my basic post-processing.

Spending money on cameras and lenses instead....:o

EDIT: The information on the amazon.com ordering page for CS4 provides extensive details of the new and improved features (scroll down after clicking on the link below):

Photoshop CS4 (http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-65015634-Photoshop-CS4/dp/B001EUBSL0)

[MikeV99]

Chuck,

I probably would not be considering a move if I had PSE 6. However, PSE7 has some things not found in PSE5. I most likely would not have gone to CS3 if PSE5 had a few things now found in 6/7.

My tendency at this point is to have PSE 7, CS3, and LR 2. I most likely will keep LR 2 current because of the ACR issues, but would most likely stand pat with the other two.

I appreciate your comments.

Mike

[TonyW]

One consideration if you shoot RAW is that PSE7 (and PSE6) work with the latest ACR plug-in (but CS3 doesn't). That means that you can open a RAW file that has been edited in Lightroom in PSE7 and all the edits will show up including any Local Adjustments you've made. That's an advantage because you then don't need to go through the intermediate TIFF or PSD file - you just have to have made sure you saved the metadata (the XMP file) which contains the edits when you were in Lightroom. So the PSE7, CS3, LR2 is a pretty good combination - I'm happy enough sticking with CS2 but will likely update it when CS5 comes out.

Tony

[Hedystafford]

Hi - I'm a new member getting to grips with PSE7 and Lightroom 2.3
TonyW wrote:-
"....you can open a RAW file that has been edited in Lightroom in PSE7 and all the edits will show up including any Local Adjustments you've made."

When I move my edited Raw file from Lightroom to PSE7 it is automatically converted to a TIFF file. How do I keep it in its Raw format?

Also - is it possible to move Folders from Lightroom to PSE7 Editor?

[Jeff Perry]

Mike, my dilemma was similar to yours, as a user of PSE6 and CS3, with both PSE7 and CS4 arriving on-scene at about the same time. I saw nothing of interest to me in 7, and a lot of improvement in CS4, especially if you have newer graphics hardware to take advantage of its speed. After my research, and (painfully) waiting a while, and "listening", I chose to upgrade to CS4 and leave PSE at 6. And I can say I think my money was well spent.

In your case there was some major improvements (and sadly, new bugs) that were introduced from PSE5 to 6, most of which I understand have not been fixed in 7. Your potential move from 5 to 7 is greater, I believe than from 6 to 7. But again, CS3 to CS4 is a major upgrade, and well worth the money IMHO.

Lastly, I do not use Elements Organizer, and have seen a tremendous improvement in Bridge CS4 over its predecessors, again, making the upgrade worthwhile.

Lastly, again, IMHO, the upgrade form 6 to 7 was a marketing decision. It really should have been a free "point release" (e.g., version 6.5), at least to please users that were unhappy about 6's new dark interface (in 7 you can adjust the color of the interface). Instead Adobe justified a major upgrade fee by releasing it as a new version 7. There were a few other improvements, but IMHO not enough to justify the major upgrade release in my case.

Jeff

[MikeV99]

Chuck,

I upgraded LR to 2 and could not make up my mind between CS4 and PSE7. So, ...

I upgraded both, but I really intend for this to be the last time I do both. Since ACR is the same for all 3 I do not see a lot of difference there. If LR had layers, I probably would just stop. I am still trying to learn PSE7 well enough to determine what it is missing that I want (and that CS 4 has). I am going to go to a PSE7 seminar and a week CS4 class to see if it will jump start me over the learning curve. Hopefully by the time upgrades appear again I shall have made a decision. I do like Bridge 4 to be able to quickly view/review images without the need for importing them into a database or organizer.

[MikeV99]

When I move my edited Raw file from Lightroom to PSE7 it is automatically converted to a TIFF file. How do I keep it in its Raw format?

Also - is it possible to move Folders from Lightroom to PSE7 Editor?
Have you tried to just open them directly from PSE7?

Not sure I know what you mean about moving folders. Lightroom has a catalog scheme for keeping track of its images. PSE7 has an organizer for doing the same. Both are just databases but do not contain the images themselves (but may contain any modifications made unless they are saved to sidecars).

[Hedystafford]

Hi Mike, I really appreciate your quick reply.

Have you tried to just open them directly from PSE7?

I have just tried what you suggest, opening the image from the Lightroom catalogue on my disk. It opens in RAW format, but without my edits.
When I try to open it from Lightroom (Library - Photo - Edit in - PhotoshopElementseditor.exe) I am only offered the option of doing it in either TIF or PSD formats.
According to Scott Kelby, if I hit Ctrl-E (PC) in Lightroom while image is in Raw format, it will atomatically open in Photoshop CS4 in Raw format. (So I presume in PSE7 also).
I just tried it on my (Trial version) of CS4 and it didn't work there either.
Actually I can't think of many situations where I would need to do this, given Lightroom's superior Raw editing capacity - but I just want to know what is and isn't possible before I make purchase decision.

Not sure I know what you mean about moving folders. Lightroom has a catalog scheme for keeping track of its images. PSE7 has an organizer for doing the same. Both are just databases but do not contain the images themselves (but may contain any modifications made unless they are saved to sidecars).

Yes, I see. I want to use Lightroom instead of Organiser. Adobe are making a big deal about how Photoshop and Lightroom work in tandem. I need to be able to move freely from Lightshop to PSE7, and back again - as I would between Organiser and Editor, and Scott Kelby's book says this should be possible. I would understand that PSE7 would be using the Lightroom catalog in this case.
I notice that after the move to PSE7 the image displayed in Lightroom also shows as a Tif - so I guess this is the same file using the same catalogue.
It's true I'm on a steep learning curve here, and may be missing something obvious!

[MikeV99]

I am still in the process of looking at things. One of the advantages of PSE7 is that it integrates the organizer and editor into one tool. It appears as though one can do everything in PSE7 organizer that can be done in the LR Library and do more in the editor than can be done in LR Developer (for example, layers). Another issue are the differences between .cr2, dng, psd, and tiff file formats. I do not have the answers yet, but hope to by the end of the summer. I am starting wonder if one might be able to use only PSE7? One might use PSE7 and Photo Mechanic (a fast image browser).

[Chuck S.]

The RAW image your camera takes is permanent; the 'edits' done in Lightroom aren't changing the RAW file, but rather are creating an adjustments overlay that's captured in a separate file (called a sidecar). The combination of the original RAW and the information from the sidecar file are interpreted as a single adjusted image by Lightroom and Photoshop.

When you go from Lightroom to Photoshop with your image, you can view the image with its Lightroom adjustments intact. If you then do editing in Photoshop and want to save your edited image, a decision point is reached: do I save as TIFF or PSD or JPEG? (RAW is not an option; that file is locked. Photoshop edits aren't saved in the sidecar associated with the LR adjustments.)

If your Photoshop edits included layers and you want to preserve those layers for further editing, choose layered TIFF or PSD; I prefer PSD for its slightly smaller file sizes.

If you're all done with your PS edits and you want to save a smaller file, you can flatten the layers by saving the image as JPEG. When I do this, I always select the highest quality setting to minimize the amount of compression the image will go through (the more compressed the image is, the more likely it is to show the 'artifacts' of compression, i.e., loss of sharpness and other image quality degradation).

Hope that helps explain why, at the end of editing in Lightroom and then Photoshop, you have two image files (RAW and JPEG/TIFF/PSD) and one sidecar.

[Hedystafford]

Chuck, that is the clearest explanation I've read anywhere on this issue. And I now see that - yes - the original raw file is still there alongside the tif-edit. Thanks - I think I've actually got it !