Worth Upgrading from PSE to PS CS5?

sapphire73

I have been using Lightroom 3 to process RAW photos and supplementing that a bit with photoshop elements as the final step. Just saw that Adobe had sent me an email offering the chance to upgrade from PSE to PS CS5 for $299 - limited time offer. Does that sound like a good move to you? (I haven't mastered the Lightroom 3 curve completely but feel like I'm making good progress.)

Shooting with a Canon 7D & assorted lenses and processing on a macbook pro. I am often in situations where I have to shoot quickly or miss the shot, so I appreciate having a lot of options when it comes to processing my images. My husband wants to know what I'd like for my birthday, so this might be a good option. But then again, I haven't had a lot of time for processing photos lately and find Lightroom 3 relatively efficient, so might not be using PS CS5 a lot in the near future.

Thanks for whatever help you can give me here!

Richard

Limited time offers tend to recur, so you shouldn't feel like this is a once in a lifetime chance. CS5 is much more powerful than PSE and offers functions that are completely lacking in LR, so if you find yourself needing to rescue problematic shots often, it's probably a good deal. Keep in mind that there's a substantial learning curve. Why not download a one-month trial version from Adobe and see what you think?

Ric Grupe

sapphire73 wrote: »

I have been using Lightroom 3 to process RAW photos and supplementing that a bit with photoshop elements as the final step. Just saw that Adobe had sent me an email offering the chance to upgrade from PSE to PS CS5 for $299 - limited time offer. Does that sound like a good move to you? (I haven't mastered the Lightroom 3 curve completely but feel like I'm making good progress.)

Shooting with a Canon 7D & assorted lenses and processing on a macbook pro. I am often in situations where I have to shoot quickly or miss the shot, so I appreciate having a lot of options when it comes to processing my images. My husband wants to know what I'd like for my birthday, so this might be a good option. But then again, I haven't had a lot of time for processing photos lately and find Lightroom 3 relatively efficient, so might not be using PS CS5 a lot in the near future.

Thanks for whatever help you can give me here!

If time is a premium.....stick with LR and tell your Hubby you want diamonds.

Then again if you enjoy sitting in front of the monitor editing images..............getting the trial and googling for "Photoshop CS5 tutorials" would be prudent. You must have plenty of time to have a continuity of thought. None of it is hard to learn.....just that there is so much you can do it takes time to digest it all.

chuckinsocal

Adobe wants $999.99 for a license key for the CS5 trial version so if you can get it for $299 I'd say go for it.

Ric Grupe

chuckinsocal wrote: »

Adobe wants $999.99 for a license key for the CS5 trial version so if you can get it for $299 I'd say go for it.

$699.00

sapphire73

Ric Grupe wrote: »

If time is a premium.....stick with LR and tell your Hubby you want diamonds.

Then again if you enjoy sitting in front of the monitor editing images..............getting the trial and googling for "Photoshop CS5 tutorials" would be prudent. You must have plenty of time to have a continuity of thought. None of it is hard to learn.....just that there is so much you can do it takes time to digest it all.

I would choose a new macbook pro (or iPad 2 with maximum memory) over diamonds but these aren't options with a son in college still. Had considered getting the new Tamron 18-270 lens as a walk around for our trips overseas but haven't seen enough reviews to evaluate it. Carry-on weight limits for some of the airlines we fly make the compromises inherent in a lens like this less off-putting than they would be otherwise.

Time is somewhat at a premium these days so perhaps I should hold off on this for now but I was wondering how much people who shoot RAW value using CS5 versus Lightroom or Aperture, etc. (I haven't checked out workflows since I first started shooting RAW about 2 years ago and was trying to wrap my head around the processing.)

Since we are heading to New Zealand and Australia in a week, I don't have time to explore a trial version before the current offer is up. The son who is in college knows his way around CS5 like it is the back of his hand and could/would help me if I got stumped, but I do pretty well with tutorials. But it's a good point that this offer is likely to recur. It just caught my eye this time, I guess.

I think my choices are to put off a decision, consider a moderately priced lens that fills a gap, or jump at the CS5 and learn the ropes later. Further input is welcome, but I get that it is hard to help someone else decide something like this. Thank you all for your help!

Art Scott

299 is like at least a $400 discount.....Litmited time offers do sometimes come back around, but not always and especially with photo software.....I am so glad to be in position that I very very drop a $100 for an upgrade of anything I need now and also that most of the software I use I can wait as much as 3 upgrades before I have upgrade and still keep upgrade price..........if you do a lot of work in PSE now it might be worth it to get it.......my workflow had gone the other way for me.....I have PS7 and CS4 +LR3.......I do 99.9% of my work in LR3 with a bit of skin touch up for portraits and such in Portrait Professional....I hardly ever see PS except for final cropping and then sharpening in unsharp mask........or if there is a plug in I must use ..........

Icebear

You will NEVER regret buying CS5 for $300.00. Never, ever, ever. Seriously.

Richard

sapphire73 wrote: »

Time is somewhat at a premium these days so perhaps I should hold off on this for now but I was wondering how much people who shoot RAW value using CS5 versus Lightroom or Aperture, etc.

FWIW, I shoot exclusively in raw. I do white balance, exposure, color adjustments, noise reduction and capture sharpening in ACR, which is included in CS5. Then I move to Photoshop for B&W conversions, local adjustments, crop, contrast fine tuning, final sharpening, and sometimes more esoteric stuff. I use a third-party plugin for noise reduction in difficult shots. My color workflow usually consists of the straight out of ACR version with a high contrast B&W layer on top, masked and blended in an overlay or luminosity mode--no way you can do that in LR alone. Likewise, AFAIK composites, stitched panoramas and HDR cannot be done with LR alone, though I believe there is a third-party plugin for HDR.

OK, so if you're not very experienced in processing, a lot of the above will sound like gobbledegook. But the bottom line is that there's nothing like Photoshop when it comes to solving difficult problems. I got my first copy using one of the $300 upgrade offers a long time ago, and I think I have gotten more bang for the buck out of it than any other single purchase.

sapphire73

Richard wrote: »

FWIW, I shoot exclusively in raw. I do white balance, exposure, color adjustments, noise reduction and capture sharpening in ACR, which is included in CS5. Then I move to Photoshop for B&W conversions, local adjustments, crop, contrast fine tuning, final sharpening, and sometimes more esoteric stuff. I use a third-party plugin for noise reduction in difficult shots. My color workflow usually consists of the straight out of ACR version with a high contrast B&W layer on top, masked and blended in an overlay or luminosity mode--no way you can do that in LR alone. Likewise, AFAIK composites, stitched panoramas and HDR cannot be done with LR alone, though I believe there is a third-party plugin for HDR.

OK, so if you're not very experienced in processing, a lot of the above will sound like gobbledegook. But the bottom line is that there's nothing like Photoshop when it comes to solving difficult problems. I got my first copy using one of the $300 upgrade offers a long time ago, and I think I have gotten more bang for the buck out of it than any other single purchase.

Very helpful input. Got 80-90% of it (not AFAIK composites, luminosity mode, or blended in an overlay) and think I may just go for the upgrade to CS5 even though I will probably lean on Lightroom 3 most of the time. I appreciate the variety of perspectives on this. Thanks.

Icebear

sapphire73 wrote: »

Very helpful input. Got 80-90% of it (not AFAIK composites, luminosity mode, or blended in an overlay) and think I may just go for the upgrade to CS5 even though I will probably lean on Lightroom 3 most of the time. I appreciate the variety of perspectives on this. Thanks.

HA! AFAIK = "As Far As I Know" Just an unfortunately placed acronym
He just means that as far as he knows you can't do that stuff in LR.

sapphire73

Icebear wrote: »

HA! AFAIK = "As Far As I Know" Just an unfortunately placed acronym
He just means that as far as he knows you can't do that stuff in LR.

The light dawns! Composites, I know, but not that acronym! Thanks for explaining what I missed.

knapph

If you do buy CS5, take a look at Kelby's 7 Point System book. Going through the lessons in this book is a good way to get up to speed with PS in a short amount of time.

I do most of my processing in LR but I find myself going to PS when I want to get the most out of an image.

sapphire73

knapph wrote: »

If you do buy CS5, take a look at Kelby's 7 Point System book. Going through the lessons in this book is a good way to get up to speed with PS in a short amount of time.

I do most of my processing in LR but I find myself going to PS when I want to get the most out of an image.

Thank you for the helpful input. I used Scott Kelby's books to help me learn PSE and Lightroom 3, and they were definitely helpful. Do you know off-hand how much of the kind of thing you do in PS is available in PSE?

Icebear

Well, if you're shooting RAW, the ability to keep everything in 16 bit 'till you export to jpg is a huge advantage PS has over PSE. YMMV

knapph

sapphire73 wrote: »

Thank you for the helpful input. I used Scott Kelby's books to help me learn PSE and Lightroom 3, and they were definitely helpful. Do you know off-hand how much of the kind of thing you do in PS is available in PSE?

My wife used Kelby's 7 Step book to help her learn more about PS. She did this so she could better tell me what she wants her images to look like. While she is a great photographer, she sits in front of a computer all day at work and will not do it at home. I am her "darkroom" guy.

I have not used PSE in many years so I do not know what the newer versions are capable of. My workflow in PS is usually something like this: get better contrast with RGB curve moves, color correct in RGB, go to Lab color mode to separate colors better (steeper curves), do a little color boost if needed in Lab mode, use the L curve to darken the image and mask to lighten the areas I want the viewer to focus on, use NIK tonal contrast to add localized increased contrast to the area I just made brighter.

The darkening and masking back lighter to control where you want the viewer's eyes to go can probably be done in PSE and I assume you could use RGB curves to color correct and improve contrast. I do not think you can work in Lab or CMYK modes in PSE. They are icing on the cake. All these moves sound like a lot of work but it goes faster than it has taken me to type it. I like working in PS and use it for all the images that we print to go into a show or for books. For the DVDs we make for travel groups, I do most of the work in LR.

If you have more questions please let me know. Now it is time for bed, looks like I am going to have to be up early tomorrow clearing the snow from our latest storm.