PSE 12 or Lightroom 5

It is time upgrade one of my two editing programmes, so I was wondering PSE 12 or Lightroom 5 - what is your view and why my forum friends?

My money would go on Lightroom 5 for speed in processing images to a very high standard. You can do so much in Lightroom 5 now, some photographers may find they no longer need Photoshop.

However, personally if you want all the bells and whistles, nothing comes close to Photoshop hence its high price as its the industry standard for any serious photo editing work.

I agree with Fletcher. I rarely touch a bitmap editor these days. Lightroom and a couple of Nik Software plugins does pretty much everything and allows the management and cataloguing of my pics.

PSE 12 and Lightroom 3

ooopps I meant PSE10!!

I would go for the Lightroom 5. I up graded from PSE10 to 11 but have not bothered with 12 as I thought it was more about connectivity to mobile devices than changes to editing.

Lightroom 5 is up for grabs at www.morgancomputers.co.uk for £57.95 with discount code CAT27 including delivery

Excellent value

It certainly is! I just paid £54 for the upgrade only version
I'd say LR5 too it is such a great photo developer and perfect for developing multiple images from single shoot and non destructive too. Photoshop is then the editor if you need it.

Both options offer a lot for the money - that LR deal sounds great! It might help if you described your preferred type of workflow - what file types do you process mostly - do you have a cataloging system in place or use a cataloging programme at present - what are the main adjustment processes you like to perform ?

Originally Elements was designed as a scaled down version of Photoshop with just the key 'elements' for photo editing, and it had more restricted operations. It's come on since then and each successive version has added features and reduced the number of restrictions - like layers in 16bit for example, so offers increasingly greater value in relation to full PS.

Lightroom was designed to develop on the increasing trend towards a RAW based workflow - the camera RAW plugin shared some controls and layout similarities to LR, as well as the desire for a better integrated image managment and editing solution - an 'all-in-one'.

The best choice depends on your own approachs - eg, is the use of layers for compositing or masking important. You can probably achieve very similar results using wither program, but the methods along the way will be very different.

Elements still uses the menu drop-down access to the editing panels, and is best used non-destructively with adjustment layers, so you work on each adjustment applying them before opening another, building up the changes step by step. LR is styled more like a traditional RAW converter, with multiple adjustments available on one screen or panel, to be moved around and finely adjusted in relation to one another.