Lightroom 4 AND Photoshop?

So for the sake of thirty quid why not just get Lightroom and Elements?

You don't have to use the cataloguing features of Lightroom, and remember you have to import an image into any program in order to edit it, including Photoshop elements or anything else

You might find you actually like the image management features of Lightroom in preference to your current system, if not then nothing lost as you still get to use the cool image editing features of lightroom.

You can also launch an image for editing in anythign else, including elements, from within lightroom itself, so no need to close one program, open another and reopen the first program.

Just a thought

Perhaps people are stumbling over the word import? It makes it sound as if the image is being moved from somewhere, wheras we could say the image was "opened" and yyou can open it wherever it is, using whichever browser will show you its location.

It's also worth remembering that we don't have to close one program and open another - the task bar is there and we can toggle between Bridge and photoshop quite happily, or any other programs we have open.

I use LR for most of my PP. My preferred way of working is to create a new catalogue for each significant collection of images. The downside I have always found with this, is how to deal with just one or two images that do not warrant a catalogue of their own. In those circumstances I use PS.

Yesterday I discovered something that might be well known to some of you. I created a new catalogue in LR of previously uncatalogued/miscellaneous images. The images had all been previously PP with PS. What I discovered to my surprise was that the PP carried out in PS/Camera Raw was imported along with my images into LR.

I am not sure how long this has been the case, but I find it very useful.


Regards - Steve

I would be happy if they replaced the camera raw in elements with the one from lightroom, as you can open editor or organizer separately they can leave the organizer in. I dont need anything as powerfull as the full version of photoshop, it would be wasted on me.
I think the catalog part of lightroom has spook me.
IMHO it would be all the enthusiastic photographer would need:.
I dont think for one moment adobe would bring it out, it just might fly off the shelfs to the detriment of the other two products.
Having spent some time trying elements 11 i think it is a worthwhile upgrade and might just settle for that ,and get back to why i bought the camera for, taking pictures.
Cheers
Dave

i thought that the camera RAW was the same in Elements 11 and Lightroom 4???????

They are indeed. That's happened several times in this thread. But on the good side it has been explained several times that importing into Lightroom and other programs that use a database that the images aren't moved ( unless you tell LR do that ) and only the image location, EXIF, etc are stored in the database ( catalgue )



Programs often take full control of a file though,and for good reason .... you don't want to start editing something in one program you've already got open for editing in another program

I'm not sure why we would be trying to edit a file in two programs at the same time, it seems a bit odd?

No, elements is a pared down version of photoshop,
Photoshop and lightroom use the same ACR.
Cheers
Dave

Update
Camera raw in elements has BASIC/DETAIL and CAMERA CALIBRATION.
If you look at the picture on page 4 they have another 7.
Cheers
Dave

Multiple catalogues causes a complete nightmare if you keyword your images as you can have only one catalogue open at a time.

There really is no need to create more than one catalogue.

Depends on how you work. I have a catalogue which ALL exported images go in. ( I export everything that isn't deleted regardless of how much, if at all, the image is processed ). In this catalogue I do all keywording, geotagging, rating, slideshowing, etc,etc

Then I have catalogues for editing, which I generally start a new catalogue for each year.

The analog analogy to this, is ...


The catalogue of Exported Images = The Photo Albuma
The catalogues where I do the editing on the originals = the negative store and darkroom.

My Photo Album catalogue has close on 250,000 images in it now, goign all the way back to 1985.

A big reason I keep originals ( negs ) seperate from exporteds ( prints ) because LR is one helluva lot quicker to work with smaller images.

That's why some programs take control of the file to prevent this situation inadvertantly happening

Yup they are indeed different

http://www.imagemaven.com/adobe-camera-raw-in-photoshop-and-elements/

Peter I take your point, but at the moment separate catalogues suit my method of working, which is:

1. Create folder on hard drive i.e Cornwall Autumn 2012.

2. Import all images into that folder

3. Create catalogue with the same name in the same folder

4. Exported images go into a subfolder named Developed and are not included within the catalogue.

5. I have a catalogue of my developed images 'Developed', which spans several folders on the drive, but I use this more for diplay or to print from, I never process jpegs in LR. If I feel it warrants it. I use PS for specialist cloning/healing, cropping and sharpening.


This method originated at a time when I was using a variety of software to PP images, which tended to have their own idiosyncratic way of importing files. .

In the past I have not bothered too much about tagging images, but that is gradually changing and my approach to using catalogues with it. I realise that I am not making the most of LR's functionality in this area.

My current PC is showing its age and large catalogues really slow it down, It is likely that with the arrival of a new PC I will merge some catalogues and develop a better way of tagging images.

Regards - Steve

Sounds like a plan, in 10 months time, it may even be cheaper then That gives me time to read some books about it.