Photoshop question.

Airedrifter

Could someone please explain the structure of the various Editions and flavors of Photoshop?

I have Elements 4 and have dowloaded Lightroom. I'm using DPP for the raw work.

Thanks

Sawyer

jfriend

Different flavors of Photoshop

Airedrifter wrote:

Could someone please explain the structure of the various Editions and flavors of Photoshop?

I have Elements 4 and have dowloaded Lightroom. I'm using DPP for the raw work.

Thanks

Sawyer

Here's one take on it. From least expensive to most expensive:

1) Photoshop Album

A photo organizer with some very simple photo fixing tools. Often free.

2) Photoshop Elements

A fairly powerful photo editor that also includes the Photoshop Album organizer. This is designed as an entry level product, but the Elements editor has an amazing amount of power and it could take you a couple years to outgrow it's capabilities. Learning Elements is an excellent starting point for the full-blown Photoshop. You can do both global corrections (brightness, contrast, color, etc...), but also local pixel editing (cloning, local painting, local brightness changes, cut/copy/paste, detailed selections, etc...). Elements has a basic set of functions for processing RAW files.

3) Photoshop Lightroom

This product is aimed at people who need to quickly/efficiently process lots of photos, but who's needs are less demanding than full-blown Photoshop. Lightroom supports both organizing functions (more advanced than Elements or Album) and global editing functions (brightness, color, contrast, sharpening, etc...), but does not support local pixel editing. Lightroom supports fairly advanced workflow functions for modifying lots of files at once, whether RAW, TIFF or JPEG. This is one major way that it is set apart from Elements which does not have much in the way of tools to quickly modify a bunch of images at once (e.g. set the white balance on a whole shoot of photos).

Lightroom can be used in conjunction with either Elements or CS2/CS3 for localized pixel editing.

Lightroom also has a fairly nice print module that lets you easily print everything from contact sheets to multiple-shots per page layouts.

It also has a slideshow module to help you show images on the computer.

4) Photoshop CS2/CS3.

We haven't yet seen the full breadth of features in Photoshop CS3 (due out this spring), but I'll guess where it's going to end up based on the CS3 beta we've seen so far. Photoshop CS2/CS3 is clearly the most powerful pixel editor out there and is a significant upgrade from Elements. It also includes Adobe Bridge which allows non-destructive editing of RAW or JPEG files (like Liightroom). It appears that Bridge CS3 will have all the new non-descructive editing functions of Lightroom.

Left out of CS3 so far and present in Lightroom are the more advanced organizing features, the printing features and the slideshow features.

Summary

If you use DPP as your RAW editor, then I would think you'd want to pair that with either Elements or CS3 depending upon how much you want to spend and how advanced a pixel editor you need. IMO, you lose a lot of the value of Lightroom if you shoot RAW and don't use it as your RAW editor.

Since you shoot RAW, if you are willing to switch your RAW editor to Lightroom, then Lightroom + Elements is a pretty good combination. You have good RAW and non-descructive editing in Lightroom plus pixel editing in Elements.

You should only really go to CS3 if you feel like you're outgrowing the pixel editing capabilities in Elements since you can get the advanced RAW editing capabilities in Lightroom for a lot less.

Airedrifter

Thank you.
Thanks.

Scott Buel

Thanks for the explanation. I've been exploring Adobe's website, but it is too huge to read everything there with the time I have right now. I've also been searching the threads here, but don't know that I've found anybody else with the same situation I'm in. I don't have any native camera EXIF to deal with, since all of my images are vintage, antique, whatever you want to call them. Check a few of 'em out here: http://sftp.smugmug.com/

I have MANY more to come...

Ok, so, I have Adobe Elements 5 and Adobe CS2, but didn't get Bridge with my version of CS2.

I want to be able to set up the IPTC template to fill in copyright, my website, etc. and batch process probably 1,000 images at once to apply this information and save me some typing. I'd still need to key in image-specific captions, subject matter, etc., but wanted the ability to apply the template to many images at once.

Can you do the batch processing in Lightroom? I can't figure out how to do it in CS2 or Elements 5. Actually, I don't think you can with E5 anyway. If someone knows how to do this, can you send me in the right direction?

I have my first 4,000 images out of 40-60,000 images to start tagging, so I need to figure this out ASAP so I can finally get some pics in my galleries.

Can you do the batch processing in Adobe Bridge? If so, can Bridge be purchased as a separate package?

jfriend

Scott Buel wrote:

Thanks for the explanation. I've been exploring Adobe's website, but it is too huge to read everything there with the time I have right now. I've also been searching the threads here, but don't know that I've found anybody else with the same situation I'm in. I don't have any native camera EXIF to deal with, since all of my images are vintage, antique, whatever you want to call them. Check a few of 'em out here: http://sftp.smugmug.com/

I have MANY more to come...

Ok, so, I have Adobe Elements 5 and Adobe CS2, but didn't get Bridge with my version of CS2.

I want to be able to set up the IPTC template to fill in copyright, my website, etc. and batch process probably 1,000 images at once to apply this information and save me some typing. I'd still need to key in image-specific captions, subject matter, etc., but wanted the ability to apply the template to many images at once.

Can you do the batch processing in Lightroom? I can't figure out how to do it in CS2 or Elements 5. Actually, I don't think you can with E5 anyway. If someone knows how to do this, can you send me in the right direction?

I have my first 4,000 images out of 40-60,000 images to start tagging, so I need to figure this out ASAP so I can finally get some pics in my galleries.

Can you do the batch processing in Adobe Bridge? If so, can Bridge be purchased as a separate package?

Bridge comes with every version of CS2. You either just don't know you have it or you need to reinstall.

Scott Buel

jfriend wrote:

Bridge comes with every version of CS2. You either just don't know you have it or you need to reinstall.

Hmmm. Ok, I'll try a re-install when I get home tonight.

So, any idea about the rest of the questions? Like, the batch processing?

colourbox

Before you reinstall, see if any of the direct Photoshop CS2-to-Bridge links work, such as the Go to Bridge button in the Photoshop options bar that jumps to Bridge, or the Browse command in the File menu. Under a normal install, Bridge must be present to support those features.

If you have Bridge, you will have the ability to create a metadata template and apply it to any number of images. Lightroom does that similarly.

Scott Buel

colourbox wrote:

Before you reinstall, see if any of the direct Photoshop CS2-to-Bridge links work, such as the Go to Bridge button in the Photoshop options bar that jumps to Bridge, or the Browse command in the File menu. Under a normal install, Bridge must be present to support those features.

If you have Bridge, you will have the ability to create a metadata template and apply it to any number of images. Lightroom does that similarly.

Ok, wow. Thank you. I'll check it out when I get home from the old mill here.

Al Pomina

Bridge in CS2

jfriend wrote:

Bridge comes with every version of CS2. You either just don't know you have it or you need to reinstall.

Bridge will open automatically if you choose to do it in PS preferences. Other wise you have to go to applications and click the icon to open it.

Al Pomina

Scott Buel

Al Pomina wrote:

Bridge will open automatically if you choose to do it in PS preferences. Other wise you have to go to applications and click the icon to open it.

Al Pomina

Thanks, Al. I got myself a copy of Lightroom, so I have my IPTC keywording issues worked out. You can do a nice easy template and then apply that to entire folders.