Upgrade it, dump it, or get something else...

[Alan G]

I have a licence for Photoshop Elements 2.0 and I am just getting interested in tweaking my photographs of landscapes and wildlife. Should I upgrade, or dump it and get Lightroom or Photoline?

TIA

Alan

[Shadowman]

Chances are your computer is capable of handling the upgrade and there are a lot of new features in later versions. I am still running version 8 but some of the lastest changes in version 12 are tempting. Not familiar with photoline but have some experience with Lightroom which will introduce a whole new learning curve to your editing experience.

[Colin Southern]

Are you meaning upgrade the computer too or just PSE?

[davidedric]

For easy tweaking, and much more besides, I would invest in Lightroom, but be prepared for a bit of a learning curve.

In response to the original question, I would dump it. Upgrade = new purchase of a completely different product.

Dave

[Alan G]

Are you meaning upgrade the computer too or just PSE?

The Machine I have is an ACER All in One PC Dual Core Pentium 2.7Ghz, 3 Gb RAM, Windows 7 and 500Gb HDD. I think that will be OK for any upgrade or new program. I have met some Lightroom users who just seem to process images on the basic settings. Their images look impressive but unreal, and I read the thread about Photoline as an alternative to Photoshop. My Photoshop Elements 2.0 is quite old and it seems I will have to pay full whack for an upgrade to 11, 12 or 13. I was just wondering what would be a sensible move for a virtual beginner like me?

[jcuknz]

I would suggest this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corel-PaintS...=paintshop+pro

I bought a copy for my notebook and found little in it to separate it from X4 which I normally use and X6 which I recently purchased ... it is at a price quite attractive in UK terms. I started with v.7AE and have seen no reason to change, only to upgrade occasionally, [alternative versions ]

Compared to even PSP7AE PSE2 was a joke.

Further down the page I found this version at an even better price http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corel-Paint-...=paintshop+pro
which woud be a mighty step forward into Post Processing for you

[Tringa]

Hello Alan and welcome to CiC.

I do not know PSE 2.0 but as I'm using version 11 then I reckon there are better editors around now.

There are many paid for editors but also a lot of free ones which are worth trying.

DxO 6 can be downloaded from here - http://www.dxo.com/de/digitalphoto - and it is free (ignore the note that says it is free until the end of June 2013); I downloaded it this week and the links work. It can handle the RAW files from many cameras and DNG files.

GIMP is also free and can do most of the things that fairly high end paid for editors can do.

If you want a free, very simple editor, try Photoscape. Its RAW converter is very poor but for quick and easy adjustment to jpeg files it is good.

Dave

[Polar01]

Al Photoshop Elements 12 I believe is the newest one if you upgrade, it gives you layers, masks, and adjustment layers, however the raw converter program is weaker than that of Lightroom, or Adobe Photoshop CC which is the most powerfull of them all. Now the Adobe Lightroom LR and CC both use the same raw converter program however they are laid out differently but have the same functions with the LR having a better print setup so they say. Now matter what owners of LR say it will never be as powerful as Photoshop CC but it's cost is a lot less and you own it instead of renting it as with Photoshop CC. That said some will use LR for the sort and process their raw files and then PSE {Photoshop Elements} to further process their work if needed. Now with these if they come out with updates or new versions you have to purchase but you own. With Photoshop now you rent per month I think in the range of $20.00+ per month all up dates are few with rental now I maybe wrong on the cost that you will have to check out. Now a lot say that the learning curve is steep with Photoshop that is if you want to learn everything I only use about 15% of the whole thing which works out to be equal to about 95% LR and 100% Elements I myself do not like the way LR sorts images or saves them however that is just me. It all comes down to what and where you want to go with your photography.

Cheers:

Allan

[Colin Southern]

The Machine I have is an ACER All in One PC Dual Core Pentium 2.7Ghz, 3 Gb RAM, Windows 7 and 500Gb HDD. I think that will be OK for any upgrade or new program.

I suspect it might be a little slow, but not unusable (a good minimum config is an i5 CPU with 8GB RAM) (Assuming x64 version of Win7)

I have met some Lightroom users who just seem to process images on the basic settings. Their images look impressive but unreal, and I read the thread about Photoline as an alternative to Photoshop.

How their images look is 99.9% a function of how they're choosing to move the sliders, and not a function of Lightroom per sec (or any other program for that matter). I'm a Photoshop user personally (can't stand Lightroom) - if you're interested, you can now lease Photoshop on a monthly basis (or infact any and all Adobe products). Some like this new business model (I do) - some would rather have hot pins stuck in their eyes - just thought I'd let you know. Learning to post-process in any package requires an investment of time and training.

My Photoshop Elements 2.0 is quite old and it seems I will have to pay full whack for an upgrade to 11, 12 or 13. I was just wondering what would be a sensible move for a virtual beginner like me?

It probably depends a bit on how involved you want to get. If it's only ever going to be a casual thing then it may not be worth it to you, whereas if it's something you're passionate about then you may want to consider "learning to drive in a Ferrari" and getting Lightroom or Photoshop. Another thing to consider; since Photoshop is the "gold standard", there's more help available than for programs like Photoline (I've never heard of it either).

Another option to consider may be GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) - quite powerful and free - and used by a fair number of people. It's not as powerful as Photoshop, but the price is right!

[davidedric]

Hi again.

As you can see, there are devotees of many different products. Fortunately, most of them have at least a free trial download.

Any of them will do a good job, though I think you've received the message that PSE2 needs to be dumped.

I have both Lightroom 5 and PSE11, and I have no doubt that LR is an easier product to learn. If you have seen images from LR that look unreal, that is the responsibility of the photographer not the software!

[Colin Southern]

the raw converter program is weaker than that of Lightroom, or Adobe Photoshop CC which is the most powerfull of them all.

Off memory, PSE limits ACR to the first couple of tabs, but in reality, they're all that are needed 99% of the time anyway.

[Alan G]

Thanks to everyone for your help. I used to run my own business selling powerful CAD modelling software up until 2004 and used a lot of graphics software and full photoshop, but photo editing was just a a bit of blemish removal contrast and brightness adjustment. Guess I will have a look at the free versions of the various pieces of software suggested and try them out.

Many Thanks one and all..

Alan

[Colin Southern]

No worries Alan.

Must have been a really early version of Photoshop in 2004 (I can't even think back that far now!).

Just keep in mind that no matter what you try, it's going to seem a bit weird until you get used to it (a bit like driving a rental instead of your own car).

[Alan G]

I was using Photoshop back in the early 1990s, but there was no elements version. I used it to clean up a really crumpled photograph of my Grandfather with his horse ambulance from WWI

Alan

[Colin Southern]

I was using Photoshop back in the early 1990s, but there was no elements version. I used it to clean up a really crumpled photograph of my Grandfather with his horse ambulance from WWI

Alan

It's sure come a long way since those good old days

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_P...ersion_history

[xpatUSA]

Off memory, PSE limits ACR to the first couple of tabs, but in reality, they're all that are needed 99% of the time anyway.

I have PSE6 on disk and Adobe allows up to ACR 5.4 for that, which gave me one more tab (camera profiles). I seem to recall that later versions of PSE allow, or come with, later versions of ACR. By "allow" I mean going to the ACR download zone at the Adobe (Labs?) site.

[xpatUSA]

Guess I will have a look at the free versions of the various pieces of software suggested and try them out.
Alan

Some of the freebies are less than perfect in the Color Management Department - for example, FastStone Viewer although quite good, doesn't store an embedded profile with your masterpiece. Meaning that browsers displaying your stuff will do whatever they want with it, color-wise. Can't white-balance with a color-picker, either. Got Lanczos re-sampling, though :-)

Raw Therapee is pretty good - with a bit of a learning curve and a cranky UI, but it's editing abilities are pretty fierce for the price ;-) L*a*b* adjustment, RL deconvolution sharpening (don't leave home without it) and a choice of ICC profiles for saving.

CAD huh? Mapics? ACAD?

[Alan G]

I tried Gimp and Lightzone today. Lightzone is very impressive, I am wondering how it compares with Lightroom.
As for the CAD, I sold my business in 2004, it involved FastCAD, ACAD, WSCAD, IronCAD, Silverscreen and many others. We also wrote our own CAD software using the FastCAD and Silverscreen engines. But now I am totally out of date.

Alan