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I've been dicking around with the notion of getting LR 4 to complement my PSE 10. I used to have CS4 but (long story) no more. What I miss about CS4 are the things I could do with Curves and the things I could do with B&W which I can't do with PSE 10 - and I do think, by the way, that PSE 10 is the dog's cojones. But ......
My understanding is that LR 4 will let me do much more than I can do currently in PSE 10 - as in, like, purely for photography purposes, it'll be almost as good as having a full-blown version of PS.
Would any PSE 10 users, who may happen also to have LR 4, care to comment?
I've got Lightroom 3.6 so I can't comment on V4 but I've recently been using PSE10 as opposed to 'real' Photoshop and I'm amazed that so many people rave about it. I dumped it too.
If you're used to CS4, then I'd imagine that you're missing a good deal more than curves and B/W.
Yes, you can do curves in Lightroom
http://mansurovs.com/mastering-lightroom-how-to-use-the-tone-curve-panel
But I have never used CS in any form so cannot comment on whether it is better or easier to use in LR4.
I have just upgraded LR 3.5 to LR4.1 and it is absolutely awesome - I find it quicker and superior to v3.6
Maybe I should have phrased the question more clearly.
The first thing I should say is that I shoot almost entirely in Raw. As I understand it, in Develop mode in LR will let you tweak your images with a much finer degree of control than is currently obtainable via Elements 10, especially, for example, in regard to mono conversion. But I still need Elements 10 to post-process images further, I assume (eg, final sharpening for printing, using Layers, etc)? Both Daffy1 and Jestertheclown say they dumped PSE 10 but they don't say what they replaced it with. I take it that LR4 cannot be used in isolation - or can it?
As for the ongoing argument about Elements v. full PS, well, for sure, full Photoshop will always be much more powerful (but, depending on your needs, not necessarily better) than Elements but I can no longer afford the luxury of - nor do I particularly want - the former, and in any case I found that even when I was using CS4 I didn't use one-tenth of what the software had to offer - because I didn't need to. Remember that PS, whatever its title says, was not designed primarily with photographers in mind. I believe LR was. I think that, because Elements is so much less expensive than Photoshop, far too many PS aficionados tend to view Elements as some kind of 'toy' version of their favourite program. They couldn't be more wrong.
But that's not what this post is about. All I wanted to know was: 1) will LR4 give me more image adjustment control than I currently get with PSE 10, in areas such as mono conversion, tone control, saturation, whatever might be used to make an image intially more pleasing to the eye; and 2) will it work seamlessly with PSE 10? Adobe's own website says that it will - I just wanted to get the views of others in my specific situation.
Hi Bob.
I was looking after a laptop for a friend which had Elements 10 on it so I tried it a few times and I wasn't unduly impressed but since I don't much like laptops anyway, I thought I'd give the trial version a go on here.
Once again, I wasn't impressed.
I've been using Photoshop for about five years, first CS2, then CS5 and currently CS6. By comparison, Elements seemed to be lacking in just about every department, which, I suppose, shouldn't come as a surprise.
I also used to have a copy of Serif's PhotoPlus which would be a competitor to Elements and if I'm honest, if I was in the market for an editor for about £60.00, I think that's about right, I'd go for Serif.
Bren.
Quote: Maybe I should have phrased the question more clearly.
The first thing I should say is that I shoot almost entirely in Raw. As I understand it, in Develop mode in LR will let you tweak your images with a much finer degree of control than is currently obtainable via Elements 10, especially, for example, in regard to mono conversion. But I still need Elements 10 to post-process images further, I assume (eg, final sharpening for printing, using Layers, etc)? Both Daffy1 and Jestertheclown say they dumped PSE 10 but they don't say what they replaced it with. I take it that LR4 cannot be used in isolation - or can it?
It depends what you want to use layers for. If it is for selective sharpening or colour correction then you can do that using the brush in LR4 (you don;t need layers in LR4 for that because all editing is non-destructive. In PSE it is destrucctive). If you want to do more complex editing then PSE is probably better.
LR4 now includes soft-proofing which will aid output sharpening - you can print directly from LR nowadays so you could create a 'virtual copy' of the image in the same way you would create an 'output sharpening' layering PSE.
I have SerifPhotoPlus X3 and it includes curves, channel mixer, tone mapping and all sorts despite it being a few years old. Serif are currently on version X5, available for £57.10.
That apart I do almost all my editing in LR4.1. It is brilliant. It has curves and if you convert a colour image to B&W, it is still a colour image underneath so the colour sliders act like filters, e.g. reduce the value of the blue filter and the (blue) sky will gradually go from grey to black.
LR1.4 does not have layers but you can download Perfect Layers2 for free from OnOne Software. However, I can do most fine adjustments using the LR graduated filter or adjustment brush.
The bottom line is, LR3.6 was good, LR4.1 is fantastic and I rarely use an outside image editor now.
I am normally very sceptical but I think Lightroom really is the complete package. Before you ask, I have no association with Adobe, just a satisfied user.
Thanks Bren and Mike for the further input. I guess at the end of the day it's all down to personal choice - that said, I'll certainly look at Serif. I'll also do more research on LR4 - I just didn't want to throw away a hundred quid on a whim, by getting LR4 and then finding it really wasn't giving me much more than PSE 10 (accepting that one will do things the other won't, and vice versa), which really was why I asked the question in the first place.
Cheers.
Bob
Quote: LR4 now includes soft-proofing which will aid output sharpening
Incorrect.
Generally speaking, Soft-Proofing deals with colour management with respect to attempting to match the monitor colours to those of the expected output, print / screen.
Quote: you can print directly from LR nowadays so you could create a 'virtual copy' of the image in the same way you would create an 'output sharpening' layering PSE.
Do not understand this statement, creating a virtual copy if you have soft-proofed is a good idea but relating it to output sharpening baffles me as I understand, provided nothing changes, the algorithm for output sharpening does not change on subsequent exports of the same image.
I have both Elements 9 and Lightroom 4.1 plus Silver Efex pro.
99.9% of the time Lightroom does all I require.
I (rarely) use Elements for layers and any complex retouching.
I find Lightroom very intuitive for Black and White conversion (took a while to get the hang of it).
Bill
In LR4.1:
1) Soft proofing is for identifying colours that are out of gamut for the colour space being used.
2) You can control the level of output sharpening in the Print Module. No need for virtual copies.
The simplest way is to download the free trial of Lightroom 4 and have a play.
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