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Hi,
I'm currently using Corel and am thinking about going over to Photoshop, but the price of the software is making me wary...Is it really worth the extra investment? I simply want ot use it to process my photos, not to do any digital art or anything. Thanks - Jonathan
Hi Jonathan, Photoshop is good, very good, but personally i don't think the RAW processing side of it is up there with the likes of Capture one and even Lightroom although Lightroom must use the same bases for processing RAW's. Don't have any knowledge of the capabilities of Corel just PS, so can't comment on it's editing tools.
Rather than pay for the huge hike to Photoshop why not look at
Capture One 4 for RAW conversion, i think it's about £77 for the Mac version
and £108 for the PC version.
jk
You don't say why you are thinking of moving to PS. Is Corel not giving you something you want?
If all you want to do is simple processing of photos then PS is probably overkill and I would recommend you take a look at PSP, which a lot of people on here use successfully (I think there is a free trial download).
If you decide only PS will do then look around for old stock of previous versions. Don't buy a downloadable version, make sure it is a sealed CD with the licence key inside.
Capture One may be (in my opinion) the best raw processor, but it isn't enough on its own.
Ian
Quote: I simply want ot use it to process my photos, not to do any digital art or anything
Then stay with Corel.
Photoshop is a heavy program that meets the requirements of graphic designers and the like. The pro will use it and will offset its cost in expenses. For general photography it could be considered a waste as you would only use a fraction of its tools. I can understand that Photoshop is a `must have` being that it`s mentioned in every corner of photography. Its no surprise that it creates demand for the wrong reasons and in its wake the illegal copies. Adobe gathered a few tools that were useful for general ohotography and offered Elements that is pretty much on the same level as Corel.
Ken
I've been with Paintshop Pro from version 4 to 12. it does 99% of everything I want it to do and I don't see much more that photoshop dioes that would make me want to change. You will hear from a lot on here that you shopuld go the Photoshop route because 1) it's the best, 2) it's what everyone uses.
Well, even if it is the best, you don't necessarily need the very best in everything, especially if the price is significantly above the competition; and for people to buy a product just because everyone else does is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Although most tutorials etc and magazines are based on Photoshop, PSP can do practically all the things mentioned in tuorials, just that tools have different names and settings etc.
So, if you're happy with Corel, stay there.
Good enough reasons to move to photoshop? - if you consider photoshop can do things which Corel can't, which is stifling you creatively.
Reasons not good enough to move to photoshop? - because a lot of people say you should, because a lot of people use it themselves
Stephen
Edit...
Quote: Adobe..offered Elements that is pretty much on the same level as Corel
Elements is a Program, Corel is a firm, so you need to specify programs to compare
I stand to be corrected, but I thought Elements didn't support layers...if not then Elements by that alone IMO is far inferior to Corel Paintshop Pro 12 (or even 11,10,9). If Elements supports layers, ignore the last sentence 
Nobody has mentioned Elements here. It does almost everything that your average photographer would want, but has a common interface with Photoshop for many things. This makes it easy to follow tutorials and use add-ins which are aimed at the full package. Additionally you get the organiser, allowing the cataloging of pics etc. And it is a very similar price to PSP.
Quote: Capture One may be (in my opinion) the best raw processor, but it isn't enough on its own.
I would have agreed with you 24hours ago Ian.
But having tried and now using Lightroom Two apart from Text and boarders i won't even need to use CS3.
Whilst I use PSP for more advanced activities, if you just want to download your digital images and carry out simple modifications, Faststone Image Viewer 3.6 is excellent and it's free for non-commercial use from www.faststone.org.
John
Must admit I haven't yet looked at Lightroom Andy, but yes it's another option.
I'm still on PSP 8, it does all I need and more.
Also have Faststone and Gimp.
I've just found that Faststone is a handy tool for running quick trial slideshows for pre-planning AV slide sequences.
I also use Irfanview occasionaly, for converting odd formats, such as DXf to JPG, it handles nearly all known formats, I think.
Quote: Quote:Capture One may be (in my opinion) the best raw processor, but it isn't enough on its own.I would have agreed with you 24hours ago Ian.
But having tried and now using Lightroom Two apart from Text and boarders i won't even need to use CS3.
I would say that for photographers who dont retouch their images then Lightroom 2 pretty will do pretty much everything that is needed, in fact the past few images in my portfolio where processed entirely in Lightroom 2, including adding the borders by using a neat plugin called Mogrify written by a photographer called Neil Armes, using this plugin I have created a Ephotozine preset and to prepare an image for upload its just a case of pressing the export button and selecting my EPZ preset.
HTH
Stu 
Elements 6 has probably got most of the features you would need, including layers and at £64 from the epz shop is definitely 5 stars for value for money !
Lightroom is a good product, but again you would have to consider it's extra investment cost ( £227 ) against Elements or other software.
Personally I believe LR is the way to go and worth the investment.
I may possibly be a little misguided here. I am assuming that some of the landscape shots I've seen here that are similar to mine look so much better owing to the software through which they are processed. From the comments I see here, perhaps it's also the camera, lenses, filtres, and indeed the photographer!
Just trying to get at some of the secrets of creating a wonderul image. One my issues could be that I use a laptop only, so the LCD screen doesn't give me the same ability to jusdge the quality of an image as a large flat screen may.
ciao,
Jonathan
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