New purchase, good or bad

[Ruffy]

I have just purchesed CS5 and LR3 as its about time I start to learn P&P, had purchesed PSE9 but thought if i am going to do this then I may as well take the plunge and go the whole hog....

Think I may have submerged my brain into a pool of "where do I start".
I may have made my first big error in the world of P&P, PSE9 is so user freindly, CS5 is, well nothing short of a headache.
I think I may well have started to run before I could even stand up as I have no experiance what so ever in the world of P&P and here I am with all the gear and no idea, on a plus side, LR3 looks pretty cool and user freindly.

Have I done the wrong thing ???

Standby for my first P&P image.....However you may have a long wait, lol

[accystan]

Paul: I highly recommend the books of Scott Kelby; specifically The Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers. I'm still using CS2 and his book on pertaining to that version is excellent.
Good luck,
Dave D

[jiro]

You have too much quid in you, mate. Just kidding.

PSE9 can do what Photoshop CS5 can do without the turbo boost. LR 3 can do wonders with your RAW or JPEG files than you can imagine given the time to know what each sliders can do. If you have the chance to return the CS5 for now I'd say do so. Or if not possible don't start working with CS5 until you have learned all the basics in PSE9. You will just be overwhelmed by CS5 as a PP starter. In the long run, you are far fortunate than us having all those 3 softwares under your disposal. Good luck.

[The Blue Boy]

Hi Paul,

CS5 will be a very steep learning curve to start with, but ultimately, worth it. I'd suggest going to YouTube and searching for a few basic tutorials. If you've registered with Adobe, go to Adobe TV/Channels and have a look at Adobe Evangelists. Some good little tuts to get you started.

As for Lightroom, well, I tried a trial just recently and I don't see the point if you've got CS5 as that comes with Bridge which is an incredible program on it's own. Others here will no doubt disagree.

[Davidd]

I did the same thing as you Paul. It took me a while to get used to CS5 even though I was pretty experienced with PSE, I got the hang of Lightroom 3 more quickly. Then I started to see the potential for moving between the two, doing most of the preliminary work in LR, tweaking it in CS5 then taking the pics back to LR. I ended up with a really smooth workflow which is second nature now. So my conclusion is: good purchase, though you need to work at it a while. I found Scott Kelby's books on both CS5 and LR really acccessible and friendly, and Julianne Kost is just a brilliant communicator on her videos about both. Youy've taken the plunge, you'll find that you gradually find yourself swimming.

cheers, David

[Ruffy]

You have too much quid in you, mate. Just kidding.

PSE9 can do what Photoshop CS5 can do without the turbo boost. LR 3 can do wonders with your RAW or JPEG files than you can imagine given the time to know what each sliders can do. If you have the chance to return the CS5 for now I'd say do so. Or if not possible don't start working with CS5 until you have learned all the basics in PSE9. You will just be overwhelmed by CS5 as a PP starter. In the long run, you are far fortunate than us having all those 3 softwares under your disposal. Good luck.

Jiro,

Thanks for the advice, I think i am going to take it, Not going to take back CS5 however I will put it on the back burner, I value your advice very much(and everybody elses)
I will carry on with PSE9 along with LR3

[Geoff F]

The thing to remember with CS5, Paul, is that you don't need to use or attempt to understand all of it to start with. You can just use it as a basic editing programme; albeit a very expensive one.

Although, I suppose, when you consider that it has it's own perfectly adequate Raw Converter the price appears slightly better.

Admittedly, this software produces excellent results, even without using all of the 'bells & whistles' which are available. And many users will never need everything that is available.

And amongst the many 'How to use CS5' books and other tutorials you may find some reasonable discounts now that the software has been around for a while. The Martin Evening book is another suggestion.

But most of these learning aids, even at the discounted price, are likely to cost more than many complete editing programmes.

[paulh921]

I am in the same situation. If you have limited image editing experience diving into Photoshop is akin to diving into quicksand. You are pretty quickly out of your depth (well I am anyway). I founf the Martin Evening book on CS5 very helpful and good value for money since it is discounted on Amazon. The other book I found really helpful was Matt Kosklowski's book on layers.
Anyway, good luck!