I've been using Corel Paint Shop Pro for about 2 years and I'm ready to upgrade, but which program do I need?  Or do I need all of them? What is the difference between them.

 I do studio portraits portraits but I mainy do events such as Weddings and Sweet 15's.  Corel Paint Shop Pro works great for touching up my pictures, but I'm ready to start getting more creative.  I'd like to start working with textures, and different photo effects.

 

 

Thanks,

Brenda

 Hi Brenda -

 I've been using Elements for awhile now and am happy with the program's abilities.  I took a class in Photoshop and have a great deal of respect for the vastness of that program, but decided at this point, I didn't 'need' all of those capabilities.  Some day I might have more appreciation for them.  The learning curve for Photoshop is fairly involved, too, whereas you can familiarize yourself with Elements rather quickly.  Anyway, that's just one photographer's perspective - it all depends on your needs and how creative you want to get.  I find the creativity component of Elements to be fun.  I do not know much about Lightroom - someone else would need to chime in on that one.  Good luck on finding the right fit for you!

 

Thanks, Vicki

Go to the Adobe site and there is a comparison chart.  If you tell us exactly what you are doing currently, then maybe we can be more exact.

Brenda,

I do not have a LOT of experience with any of these programs, just a little bit with ALL of them.  I have both Lightroom and CS4.  IF you shoot a lot of images at weddings and Sweet 15/16 events I would say that if you can learn Lightroom it might be a bit more friendly.  It is more suited to managing large amaounts of images and allows a lot of basic processing.

 

I think busy wedding photogs gravitate towards Lightroom because you can make an adjustment on one image and apply it to all the images you want from a shoot very quickly so WB, spots on the lens, exposure can be globally changed.  And the Targeted Adjustment Brush(also available in CS4) allows local/spot adjustments very easily.

going from PSP to psElements is a step back.

Paintshop Pro is as good an editor as Photoshop.

the only reason to switch is that photoshop is "the environment" most photographers and graphic designers work in.

(there are plenty of people that use PSPin a professional capacity; but Photoshop is by far more common in the "real world")

Lightroom is a different animal from any of the others. first off there are no "layers". second all the changes you make in Lightroom are only attached to the file until you "export" it to print or as a new file.

Lightroom is designed for a photographer's needs not a graphic designer or art director.

The concept of Lightroom is based on a photographic "work flow" filing. sorting and rating, keywording and and other metadata application first.

Then the "developing"; and finally the end use; prints, slideshows or web use.

 

 I use lightroom and elements together. It's done everything I've ever needed it to do.

That goes for me too.  I run my images through Lightroom first and then PSE.  I also run them through Imagenomic Portraiture if they need it.  It's fairly easy process and it works great. 

You may end up working in a photoshop elements/lightroom set up. By the way you can download all these programs for a 30 day free trial. But let's say that you don't want two, then you need to decide what your priority is. Photoshop and elements are really pixel editors, because they do so much more than just adjust photos. Lightroom and aperture are really set up to deal with potentially massive work flows.

Those programs come into play when you've taken a boat load of pics at a wedding and you need to organize and make quick adjustments to a lot of photos. Full blown photoshop has so much I'd never use the bulk of it and it costs an arm and a leg. If you plan on getting into some real complex things it's great but I think elements is fine for most folks, and lightroom is great for working on large amounts of photos quickly.

I use Paintshop Pro x2. I've never used Photoshop. From what I've heard, Paintshop does everything Photoshop does, and then some. It's just called smething else. "actions" in photoshop are called scripts in Paintshop. You can run quickscripts, or full batch scripts.

Does Photoshop have a trial?

Hey Brenda. One thing to keep in mind is that Lightroom Beta 3 is available to anyone and it's free while in beta. It might be a good option for you to test it out. I've been using it for a few months now and like what it can do. No, it doesn't do layers but it has some great basic retouching features that may work well enough to not even go to Photoshop or PSP. Plus if your workflow includes going through picks or selects then you may see some advantage with Lightroom.

As far as Photoshop (Elements or CS4), there are so many tutorials and how-to's out there since it's such a "standard" app for photogs and designers. You really can't go wrong with CS4 for any of your heavy edit needs.

That's my 2 cent. :)

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/

I started out with Elements back in the early days and slowly progressed to Photoshop.  I kinda feel like Elements is a pre-photoshop program.  I also bought Scott Kelby's Elements handbook.  I honestly think if I didn't start out with Elements and I just threw myself into Photoshop, I would have been thoroughly confused 

Thank you all so much for all the information, ya have given me tons of information and has been so helpful..................I'm the type of person that needs to know everything possible about what I'm about to purchase especially if its going to cost me money.

 

 

Thanks :)

Brenda, I know you already got tons of good info but wanted to chime in here. I shoot mainly weddings and Lightroom has literally changed my editing life. In almost every case, I can do everything I need to do to an image in Lightroom and only occasionally need to use Elements. Very occasionally. There are many free, live tutorials for Lightroom and you will be amazed how it can change the way you edit and how quickly you can get it done!
     It is absolutely true that you can't use Lightroom for any design work...you will need another way to get that stuff done.

Hello and thanks for your advice, I was wondering, do you use lightroom to apply different effects to your photos........I looked at some of your pic's on your blog and they look really good.

 

Thanks,

Brenda

Any effect you see on my images is done through Lightroom...the only thing I ever use Elements for is fixing something like lense distortion or really shiney spots on the skin. All of the presets that I use were free:) If you google free Lightroom presets, you should get a ton!
And thank you for the compliment:)

 HAve you seen the updated version, X3( just came out this month),of Paint Shop Pro?  It has a feature similar to lightroom.

If you make the switch, don't go to elements, that would be a definite step down from PSP.  Lightroom is nice, I am trialing it now, but it doesn't have all the editing features found in the other programs.

 Traz- do you have the X3? If so, how different is it from X2 or X2 Ultimate? Is it worth paying the upgrade?