Someone force me to use PS Elements

[ScottyP]

I use Lightroom and I love it. I have had every version since LR3. Photoshop Elements has been like Kryptonite or Brussels sprouts to me though.

I bought Elements 10, installed it, and proceeded to ignore it for 3 years until I scrapped my computer. Then 2 months ago I bought Elementa 12, installed it, and proceeded to ignore it. I am ignoring it as we speak, in fact. I have watched some videos and I had the best of intentions, but I JUST CANNOT MAKE MYSELF DIVE INTO IT NO MATTER WHAT I DO.

Any suggestions?

[cicopo]

Pay for a 1 month membership to Lynda dot com & take some tutorials. When you've done that you can KNOW whether it's something you might some value from should you start working with it. I use CS 6 & took their tutorials for CS 4 while laid up from an operation. It was worth the 3 months of payments to me just to keep me from being bored but I also learned a lot. I have NEVER found a use for Lightroom & had the original Beta version because I was a registered user of the program (from the company Adobe bought) that became Lightroom.

[ebiggs1]

Right of the top, LR is more designed for pros that shoot 1000's of photos and PSE is more designed for amertures that are really into cameras.  The editing features are vastly superior in PSE but it is designerd for a single picture at a time.  LR has fewer tools but can apply them to as many photos at a time as you want.

Most people should be using PSE. And the basic editing in PSE is no more difficult to master than LR and in fact are similar.

[RobertTheFat]

I have no dog in this hunt, having never used LR or any form of Photoshop. DPP works well enough for the kind of work I do, and I see no reason to change for at least the time being. So I can claim to be a dispassionate observer. 

To me the unspoken bottom line is that Scott should stick with LR, a program he knows and likes, and stop feeling guilty because he hasn't learned to use PSE. If the time comes when LR no longer meets his needs, he'll be motivated to find something else, possibly PSE, which does. Is it really any more complicated than that?

[cicopo]

The reason I suggest watching some tutorials at Lynda dot com is that until you see what any given software program can do once you spend the time to learn the basics you really have no way to decide if it can help you at whatever you might need done. Elements is a pretty powerful program capable of manipulating photos in many different ways, some of which you may never be interested in doing but some may really be what gets your motor running.

[ebiggs1]

Yes, it boils down to do you want a catalog program or do you want a photo editing program?  Granted either LR and/or PSE can do both but neither does it as well as the intended purpose of each one.

Mr. Scott must decide which fits best.  

[Skirball]

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@ScottyP wrote:

Any suggestions?

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Why do you want to use it?  Evidently you don't have need of PS, otherwise you'd use it.  Don't force it on yourself just because it's there.  I spent some time on the opposite side of the fence as you, trying to only edit my images in LR and not kick over to PS.  But I couldn't do it.  I know I can always make my images better in PS, besides, I enjoy it.  So why fight it?

The lines between PS and LR have become blurred, as LR adds more spot editing capabilities, and PS has more organizational and batch processing tools.  But they have very different indended uses.  PS is for pixel level editing.  You can use it for basic developing, as well as general organization and tagging and whatnot, but it'll never be as effecient as LR.  Likewise, LR has made a lot of improvements as far as doing localized editing, but it simply doesn't possess the ability to manipulate images like PS; not even remotely close.  Most traditional photographers don't want or need this ability, and hence are fine with LR, but for those of us that prefer more of a digital artist approach, PS is our playground.

As to PSE, well, it's my kryptonite too.  But that's only because it has stripped out so many essential PS functions that I consider it pointless for anyone with even a moderate knowledge of editing.  It's great for people who don't want to learn PS and just want to do some basic editing.  But you'll run into limitations real quick if you're get into editing on any level.