I just got a new PC and I'm looking to get a little more serious about photo organization and manipulation. When I read reviews of Photoshop Elements 10 and Lightroom 3, since I'm fairly inexperienced in the Adobe world, they look pretty identical to me. Does anyone work with either of these packages enough to offer comments? One thing that's making me lean towards Photoshop Elements is that I can get it bundled with the video package Premiere Elements. Still, if Lightroom 3 would suite my needs that much better, I'd go that route.

Any thoughts, comments, etc. would be appreciated.

I use Photoshop all the time to work with my digital photos, but I have never used Lightroom. From what I'm seeing, it appears to be something complementary, rather than a replacement for, Photoshop. As in, you still need Photoshop. So I'd go with that.

Thanks for the info Jeff...I think I was leaning that way anyway. Since I don't have any experience with any of these adobe products (although I use acrobat all the time) I just wasn't sure what was what. It looks like Lightroom has some of the functionality of photoshop elements, which was what confused me. I think I'm going to go for the bundle of photoshop elements and premiere elements since amazwan has a sweet price for that bundle now. ($89.99)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MMMT0A/?tag=imwan-20

I use Photoshop professionally, and I have Photoshop Elements at home. Elements does most of what Photoshop does, and it covers all the basics. We have Lightroom at the office, but only on our staff photographer's machine, so I don't know it as well. He tells me it does basic photo editing, but the big plus is that it works well for creating a photo database -- that is, organizing photos. So, it depends what you need/want. If photo editing is most important, I think Elements is the choice. If you want to set up a big database, you will want to look at Lightroom.

Greg...thanks. I actually ordered a combo of photoshop elements and premiere elements from amazwan and they actually shipped it so quickly that I received it the next day. In the package was a demo version of Lightroom, but reading various source info along with what you posted, I have the same sense, that Lightroom is more about the organization. I don't take enough pictures that organization is a problem. I was looking more for something to allow me to get a little more creative than I've been able to get with the various freebie programs I've tried in the past. I installed and looked at photoshop elements. One things for sure, I'm going to need some time to really sit down and dig in. Even elements looks complicated to me, at least more than tools I've used in the past. I think I'll be able to figure it out though.

There's lots of good advice out there, Walter, and Elements is very powerful, but can also be fairly simple as well. You can play with the Auto-Smart Fix, but generally, I've found that it's setting need tweaked a bit to be very good (although it is much better in version 8 than in the previous version I used, which I think was 3). I've been using it since the predecessor product, and there is a lot that I still haven't learned to use. But I'm constantly amazed at what I can do with what I have learned.

Alan

Okay Alan...you're scaring me now. I guess I'm going to have to roll up my sleeves and get going if I'm ever going to be halfway proficient. Oh the pressure!

To be honest, organizing your photos is extremely easy with Picasa, free from Google. 90% of simple edits are even just fine using that. It's when you want to get into the more advanced photo editing that Photoshop becomes key; I couldn't make do with just Picasa with the things I do...but I use it to keep things straight and organized.

Thanks Jeff...I'll have to check Picasa out. If it's a freebie, there's no harm in giving it a try.

Are your action figures in alphabetical order too?

I own no action figures.

No, no - not my intent! Just pointing out that it's powerful, and you can do a whole lot without getting very deep into the features of the program. As long as I've been using this line, there is stuff I've never even looked at let alone used. When my son had his senior pictures taken, the photog used Photoshop to do some quick edits to give us an idea how much could be cleaned up (my son wanted his picture taken with his Tardis cutout, and there was some glare). I looked at what he was doing, and sure enough, some of the same tools were in Elements and I'd seen them but had no idea what they did.

I will say this - in the tool for adjusting the lighting, there is a tool that lightens up shadows. Very cool and very useful. But when you play around with it, push the setting high so you get an idea what happens when you go too far. I've found that particular tool only to be really useful at settings of 20-25 or less.

But you're going to have a blast when things start clicking for you!

Alan