For a new photographer...online Pixlr or Photoshop?

[Liz S.]

I am seriously interested in photography, I spend hours playing around on Pixlr with my photos. I love it! I am debating whether or not to invest in the student version (my husband is a student) of Adobe Photoshop Extended CS6 and the student version of Lightroom 4. I can save a bundle but it is still quite an expense for someone not doing this as a job.

Pixlr is limited and the quality of the finished photos are also limited. But perhaps it is something comparable to Adobe Photoshop that I can learn to use??? I don't know since I have not used Photoshop before. Any opinions for an amateur from anyone familiar with both? Alternately are there other online programs I can use for free in lieu of purchasing Photoshop for the time being?

Many thanks,
Liz

 

[Moab Man]

Having used both, and just recently learned playing with Lightroom 4, for the cost (student) of photoshop I think you would be making a poor choice not to go that route.

 

[Liz S.]

Moab Man have you found Lightroom easy to learn or have you found the need for classes or additional support from books/online resources? Just curious as to what to expect. I think I will heed your advice and go for it!

 

[stmv]

If you can get a reasonable CS6.. Yes...

 

[fotojack]

Liz...welcome to Nikonites. I'm going to recommend 2 or 3 more editing programs that are free and very easy to use.
My favourite is Irfanview. Next is Picasa 3. Next is Gimp. All of these are free.

If you want something like Photoshop, but much, much cheaper, try Corel Paintshop Photo Pro 4. I picked up PSP Pro 3 last year for about $40.

 

[Moab Man]

Moab Man have you found Lightroom easy to learn or have you found the need for classes or additional support from books/online resources? Just curious as to what to expect. I think I will heed your advice and go for it!

My initial impressions with Lightroom changed as I got for familiar. Mostly... discovering how/where the tools are buried. In Photoshop the tools are more obvious and on the surface where with Lightroom you have to know how to uncover them. IF I didn't have the option for an educational discount on Photoshop I would have no hesitation of going with Lightroom. However, the educational discount gives you CS6 Extended for only $249 and with Liz having access to that discount I think it's worth it.

 

[nikonpup]

if you have tons of photos and need to organize them go with lightroom.

 

[Brusader]

I would download and try Photoshop and Lightroom and see what suits you best. You'll find they'll give you a 30 day trial before you have to purchase.

 

[pistnbroke]

I was looking a another wedding photogarphers webs site "we shoot with three cameras" then I noticed in the client area Disc 1 Disc2 Disc3....oops if you feed the lot into lightroom and have your camera clocks set right they all get shuffled into time order ...we could not live without that ...

 

[BackdoorArts]

II find Lightroom to be sufficient for 80-90 percent of what I need to do in post processing. Photoshop Elements is often referred to as "Photoshop Light" but in actuality I find that I can do 80-90 percent of what I'd want to do in Photoship in Elements, and I got Elements 11 for $49 (I think Tim Grey's standard line is 80% of the functionality at 10% of the cost" or something like that). That said, if I had access to CS6 extended for the $249 student price I'd be all over it, because if I didn't need it then I know I could grow into it. It can be a daunting program to throw yourself into at first, so get yourself a good book to help guide you through. I've found Scott Kelby's Lightroom and Elements books to be very helpful, and I'm currently browsing one from the folks at Rocky Nook on CS6 and LR4 that I'm considering. There are plenty of great tutorials out there as well.

As was suggested, download the trials and give them a shot. I recommend not doing it all at once as 15 days is not a lot of time to spend learning one of them, let alone both. Depending on how long your husband's student status runs, I would recommend LR and Elements at first and see how much you use it. The $200 can go towards something else if you find yourself not needing it. But it's almost silly not to take advantage of the Student price if you can and know you'll use it.

 

[eurotrash]

I tried learning photoshop, but failed. IMHO it's just simply convoluted, hard to manipulate and takes way too much time. There's way too many complications in trying to do certain things. I personally don't like it at all.

I feel as if Photoshop is great if you really need to CHANGE a photo. Add or delete people, change backgrounds, etc. But if all you're really doing is EDITING a photo a little, making parts a bit darker/sharper etc, then LR is really a faster, more organized and generally more intuitive tool for that.

That all said, I own PSCS5 and use it every blue moon. But my standard is LR4. YMMV of course.

 

[John101477]

Interesting replys here. FIrst off Lightroom and photoshop are 2 very different programs that work very well with in each other. Yes photoshop is a huge program that many never take the true time to learn. cant blame that on the program at all. I use both and am back and forth in both all of the time. With out a doubt lightroom 4 is the best multi image editing program there is and the organization ability is second to none. BUT that is lacking with LR is the ability to really fine tune some images. like the clone brush which is much more accurate in PS. layers is another powerful ability that you just do not have in LR because of the way LR edits the image.

I have used several different editing platforms and will say there is a REASON that Adobe is the #1 software among professional photographers. Get it and learn it! if there is something you want to leanr how to do in PS, there are tons of instructional videos on LR and PS on you tube and Adobe TV not to mention the NAPP and other Scott Kelby things.

 

[AC016]

My question is - and it may not be a popular one amongst all the software pros around here -, have you learnt all the fundamental basics of photography first? Have you learnt about every single feature of your camera? What are you hoping to accomplish with the software that you possibly can get right in the camera first? I only ask this because amateurs who go head first into software, usually get distracted by this and don't learn the fundamentals of photography first. So, for example, instead of learning how to get the right exposure, they learn how to get the right exposure in PP. Wrong way to do it. Only my opinion though.

 

[John101477]

My question is - and it may not be a popular one amongst all the software pros around here -, have you learnt all the fundamental basics of photography first? Have you learnt about every single feature of your camera? What are you hoping to accomplish with the software that you possibly can get right in the camera first? I only ask this because amateurs who go head first into software, usually get distracted by this and don't learn the fundamentals of photography first. So, for example, instead of learning how to get the right exposure, they learn how to get the right exposure in PP. Wrong way to do it. Only my opinion though.

There ar e a ton of things that Software can not do as well as a camera. for one I prefer the look that a GND filter gives over what can be accomplished in software. Long exposure shots are ONLY capable in camera. Make no mistake there is no proper way to correct a PROPER exposure but that being said when we are out to photgraph our eyes see very differently than our cameras are even capable of so in instances like that, software and the knowledge of how to get the proper shot in camera and propely edited in post is a must. For example
This shot is what the camera was capable of seeing but was no where near what I was seeing. this is not edited in any ways except for the change between raw to JPG
View attachment 24738

But I was nowhere near happy with that and knew what I wanted from the image in the first place and that was a fair representation of what I was seeing.
With knowledge of both camera, photography, and software

 

[BackdoorArts]

My question is - and it may not be a popular one amongst all the software pros around here -, have you learnt all the fundamental basics of photography first? Have you learnt about every single feature of your camera? What are you hoping to accomplish with the software that you possibly can get right in the camera first? I only ask this because amateurs who go head first into software, usually get distracted by this and don't learn the fundamentals of photography first. So, for example, instead of learning how to get the right exposure, they learn how to get the right exposure in PP. Wrong way to do it. Only my opinion though.

Valid question, but I don't believe you can put the cart before the horse here and stay interested unless you're stubborn enough to do it a certain way. If I don't have something to post-process and clean my photos so they look nice enough to share then I may get discouraged and not want to continue taking pictures. So I need to learn enough of my camera to take a decent picture and enough of my software to crop and touch up the shot pretty much at the same time.

For me, it's been push/pull on both sides. What I've captured with the camera has pushed me to learn the applications I have so I am happy with them. As I find things in the software it's caused me to try and figure out why I may always be doing certain corrections and it makes me go back to my camera skills. This drives me to learn more from others on forums or web tutorials which then pulls me further into both sides.

I spent my first nine months with a DSLR using Elements 9. When someone saw what I was doing with Elements and the organizer they suggested Lightroom. I brought in Lightroom 3 and used that for a year along with Elements when I wanted to use layers or some of the tricks I learned there. Then, as my confidence grew and I wanted to learn more I tried HDR photography which introduced me to Nik Software. From there, in short order, I upgraded to Lightroom 4 and Elements 11, and then to Photoshop CS6 just recently. In every step along the way what I was doing, or trying to do, with the camera caused me to push myself deeper into the software. And as I learned more about that, it made me think more about what I was doing when the camera was in my hands. I'm not sure if it works this way for everyone, but it's an organic growth on both sides.

From the beginning of time, you can learn to take a great photo, but if you don't know how to develop and print it then what good is that - unless you want to pay someone to do it, of course?! And as you learn to develop and print you discover that it is an artform to itself - knowing where and how to burn or dodge, what paper and film produce what effects, etc. While we no longer get heady around the smell of developer and fixer, and our risk of toxicity is limited to how close we sit to the monitor and for how long, using these software packages to their fullest can be just as steap a learning curve, and just as rewarding, as the art of photography. And not just the special effects stuff, but simply making the absolute most out of a well executed photograph.