Plus with Lightroom there’s a whole slew of pre-sets. Aperture is now selling for about $80 in the Apple App store which is very competitive with both Photoshop Elements and LR.įYI – Here’s a screen grab of the Lightroom develop window, because I knew you’d ask! You can see that it looks much different at first glance, but all the features of ACR Photoshop CS5 are in there. (I recently got my Lightroom for only $130 when I purchased a new camera at Vistek.) Keep your eyes peeled for deals out there. So if you have Photoshop CS6 you really don’t need Lightroom, but if you want to save a few hundred bucks and don’t need all that CS6 super power, you could get a Lightroom and Elements combination for under $200. Lightroom has the same raw work flow features as Photoshop’s version of ACR.
I’m a huge fan of the raw imaging work flow, so as an alternative, I suggest you use Adobe Lightroom, or Apple Aperture if you want to really make the most out of those raw files. I suppose if you had never used Photoshop you wouldn’t know what you were missing. I know I’ve written in the past that you don’t need Photoshop, but maybe some of you do.
I suggest you view this video full screen as it has a lot of detail in it that you’re going to want to see. In fact I deliberately put different photos in there so you wouldn’t confuse the two.
A powerful application without the learning curve of PhotoshopĪdobe Photoshop Elements is a powerful application with which you can organize, edit, enhance and share your images in many ways, without requiring professional photo editing skills.When you first see each of the ACR windows they look the same. Also, don't expect Adobe Photoshop Elements to be just a stripped-down version of Photoshop – it’s quite a different program that combines the power of Adobe's tools with a more straightforward and social-media oriented interface. On the downside, some tools can be a bit confusing at first for those that haven't used Photoshop before. Easy to make quick edits to imagesĪdobe Photoshop Elements is a great application for quick image editing, photo sharing and easy-to-create photo artwork. There's also integration with Elements Live which is Adobe's online community for Elements users where you can see work done by others, enter competitions and upload your own creations. Photoshop Elements will even suggest four different types of edit to choose from meaning you simply choose the best one and the program does the rest. Guided Edits now help you to perform edits more accurately and also to create hybrids of color and black-and-white photos. Most recently, the mobile syncing integration in Adobe Photoshop Elements has been significantly improved and a new tool has been added dedicated to blending your Facebook profile and cover photos to create something more unique. The Sharing tool, in turn, allows you to create online albums, burn your images onto CD or DVD, send them by email, and share them on Facebook or Flickr straight away.Īdobe Photoshop Elements also has some useful tweaking functions such as Red Eye Removal, the ability to move objects around in an image, and integration with mobile devices such as tablets. Adobe Photoshop Elements also helps you apply more elaborate effects in an easy, step-by-step process.Īdobe Photoshop Elements is also a perfect tool to create photo collages, postcards, calendars and other similar goodies with your images. You can resize, crop, remove the red-eye effect, adjust color and lighting, tweak levels and contrasts, or simply apply some automatic quick fixes to your photos. The program features three different editing modes - Full, Quick and Guided - suitable for all levels of expertise. The Editor in Adobe Photoshop Elements includes all the tools you need to edit, fix, share and design all sorts of printed creations with your images.