lightroom, photoshop...or something else?

as per title really.

my dearest wife has said she was going to buy me photoshop or something similar for my birthday (in September), and had asked my son to find out what I would prefer. I shoot mainly jpeg, but did try the free 1 month trial of lightroom in January and quite liked that, using raw.
I think for day to day pics I would still use jpeg, but would use raw when I wanted to do something with them afterwards. I wouldn't fancy having to PP a load of "snaps".

So what would you recommend? I was thinking lightroom (would it be version 6) Bear in mind "ease of use", I really am a novice when it comes to pp, but would like something I could grow into, so to speak.

a new laptop may be on the cards as well, so I may be asking for advice on that later!!

thanks for any advice,

Simon.

I have Lightroom and Photoshop Elements and use Lightroom 99.9% of the time.
I only got Elements for creating Panoramas but LR6 has Panorama and HDR functions built in now so I only use Photoshop for very complex cloning work.

I'd go with Lightroom.

Essentially, if you don't need to edit multiple photos at once, then PS is the way to go, as it can do quite a few things that LR can't. Like content aware cloning and patching, 3D cloning, liquify, video editing, 3D editing. Vector support for text and graphics - Christmas cards anyone?
It comes with Adobe Camera RAW anyway, which can work on multiple images.
Incidentally, LR's new panorama tool is really good and fast. But again Photoshop makes a good enough job of that still.
I use LR almost elusively now, but I need to work really fast on hundreds of images at once.

For you I recommend PhotoShop Elements. It has an image organiser and cataloguing feature that makes it easy to see and manage your images plus every type of editing and adjusting control you need. If you use RAW then Elements will automatically open the ' Camera Raw' panel to fine tune and convert your RAW.

For jpeg shooting I always feel we should operate the camera custom controls to be sure of getting the best edited jpeg right from the camera, but you can perform some minor adjustments in Elements should you need to and save a new version without affecting your original.

As a bonus, PhotoShop Elements includes some easy to use modules for creating prints including creative designs for page layouts and arranging multiple photos onto a page. You can choose background and borders to complement your images also. It has built-in facility to upload images to online printers to post you prints. All in all its a full package with everything the hobbyist photographer needs.

What he ^ said
I've never used elements. Sounds ideal.

Photoshop Elements will cover everything you need.

+ 1

Phil

I'd recommend Lightroom.

Indeed, but Lightroom makes it easy. You create an enhancement develop preset, and simply select all your snaps and apply it. job done. it makes the snaps more fun to look at. I take loads of "snaps" that I would class under my serious photography and just quickly tweak them all in Lightroom.

Lightroom will cover 99.9% of your needs

Photoshop will cover 100% of your needs, but make working on that 99.9% take a lot lot lot longer.

No Brainer really. Get Lightroom and then if you're really really desperate for a rare feature that Lightroom can't do then get some added software to take care of that.

Another recommendation for Lightroom - for anything photographic. I probably do 99% of my work in LR, even commercial stuff.

For editing/cutting out etc Photoshop Elements, or Pixelmator (Mac OSX) are excellent and complement LR well. Full Photoshop can be very daunting for new users!

Matt

PS Elements is great for what you you will need. I got light room and lost the will to live with it. Also a free program Faststone image viewer is superb.

I think people that have used Photoshop can't adapt easily to the Lightroom workflow, if you start off using Lightroom initially it is easy to pick up and a lot quicker to work on a large batch of images.
When I cover a rugby match I may take up to 700 photos, I have to send a selection of photos off to the Rugby newspaper within a couple of hours of taking the photos and don't think I'd manage in Photoshop.

Lightroom is excellent at both image organisation/cataloging and image editing. I thought it would be all difficult and complicated but I found it very intuitive and powerful. I download off my SD card, edit, tag, georeference and export in Lightroom. Only for the occasional cloning task, or for work where I am doing complex selections and edits do I drop into Photoshop. Even then, I fire up PS from within Lightroom, and once I am finished get automatically updated images in Lightroom. It is the dog's dangly bits.

K.

Another vote for Lightroom here, but I accept that PSE might give you all you need for now. Either could suit you. (or both, like many on here, including me)

Lost my comment, but the above says it all really.

Lightroom is made by the same people as photoshop. You often find a weird division between users who fall into one camp or the other, and I find that quite weird. Lightroom is targeted to a photographers likely workflow, and you just use the bits you need.

An elements version may be the best for your initial needs, but personally I've found the cut down versions annoying sooner or later, when you want to do a bit more that's outside the scope of the entry product. Also I've not necessarily found a lot in common between the two in the past, as in the elements versions have appeared quite different to the main product, so you weren't necessarily being taught the basics in a way that could easily transfer at a later date. I haven't used any elements versions in a long time now though, so I'm not in a position to comment on that. Perhaps others could?

You can't go wrong with any of them really.

I'd say the latest versions of Elements editing features are more aligned in interface and functional terms to the full Photoshop, but strip out some aspects not core to photography, or that relate to commercial printing .