Elements vs. Lightroom

[seattleddc]

Hopefully this isn't retracing old steps. I started using Elements with version 6. I'm now using 10. But of course for the past few years I've been hearing about Lightroom. Admittedly, I hate change, but if Lightroom is better I need to get on board. Or do you use both? Seriously, I'm very confused. If someone can clear this issue up for me (do I need Lightroom, or is Elements by itself just fine), I'd really appreciate it.  And feel free to speak to the lowest common denominator, I'm no genius.

[michelb]

Jul 8, 2016 12:11:13 GMT seattleddc said:

Hopefully this isn't retracing old steps. I started using Elements with version 6. I'm now using 10. But of course for the past few years I've been hearing about Lightroom. Admittedly, I hate change, but if Lightroom is better I need to get on board. Or do you use both? Seriously, I'm very confused. If someone can clear this issue up for me (do I need Lightroom, or is Elements by itself just fine), I'd really appreciate it.  And feel free to speak to the lowest common denominator, I'm no genius.

First, welcome in this friendly forum.
Do you need Lightroom? Perhaps... Some features like Lightroom Mobile or Camera tethering are unique.
Will you be happy with Lightroom and will it help you in your photographer's workflow? Probably yes, and you'll find many users in this forum to support that opinion.
Is there a risk you won't be happy with Lightroom? That's possible for a few reasons:
- there is a learning curve, and even if being acquainted with the organizer will help you, you'll have to get help form tutorials and forums like this one.
- You are supposed to be able to know more about backup procedures (and computers in general). The backup procedures in Lightroom don't deal with media files backups, only catalogs backups; you should be aware of that.
- Price and license options: you have a choice of a pepetual license or a Cloud subscription. The organizer is included in the Elements price.

Now, one important thing to consider is that Lightroom is not only an assets manager like the organizer. It's also a parametric editor, which means you don't edit the pixels of your images, you save your editing steps, not versions of your edited pictures. That alone is a very important difference with pixel editors like the Elements Editor or Photosop. And the best is to use both LR and either the editor or Photoshop. So, the additional price of LR also means more power in the editing domain. Parametric editing is also available in Elements/Organizer via the ACR raw conversion module, but with much less power. Lightroom is particularly recommended when you are dealing with very big libraries and when you need a lot of customization for repetitive actions, that where it shines particularly.

I'll leave other users comment and add their opinions.
My own choice is to use only the organizer, even if I have Lightroom... I can do everything I need without Lightroom.

[Fauxtoto]

Hi,

You could go for the trial version and compare the process and result with photos you have already edited in Elements.

Many people first do their adjustments in Lightroom and, if still needed, bring the result into an editor, such as Elements or Photoshop, where exclusive additional features may be found. Lightroom plays a role that could be compared to Camera Raw, which is present in Elements. However, Lightroom offers more possibilities and better control than Camara Raw.

Lightroom works well with jpeg, but its full potential is better reached with RAW files. If you do not work in RAW, Lightroom may not be so useful for you. Lightroom is also a powerfull database that can be used to organize and manage your photos.

I started with Elements 7, then 10 and, recently, I upgrated to Elements 14. By the same occasion I installed and started to use for the first time Ligthroom (version 6, DVD). There is a big difference in the Organizer interface between Elements 10 and 14. Most of the changes are either cosmetic or oriented towards automatic features, for instance regarding face recognition for people, geographic situation for places and time line for events. The tags have been adapted accordingly and special tabs have been created respectively for people, places and events. Many people like it. The old fashion me hates it. The reason I am mentioning this is that eventually, instead of spending time learning a new version of Elements, maybe you would rather like to try the CC combined Photoshop – Lightroom option. I will certainly consider it when I am due for an upgrade.

My personal experience is that, contrary to Adobe assertions, the tags already entered in Elements are not compatible with Lightroom. At least, they were not in my case. Importing the catalog from Elements 10 to Elements 14 was fine. However, importing the catalog from Elements 14 to Lightroom 6 gave absolute erratic results as far as the tags were concerned. I did contact Adobe on this matter, but they have not been able to solve the problem. Using Lightroom to organize and manage your photos could make sense, but it may require additional manual work for the integration of the tags already assigned to your existing photos in Elements.

Most probably, you would use Lightroom as your first editing step. As a consequence, using it would bring a change in your workflow. Often, the adjustments made in Lightroom are sufficient.

I am just beginning to learn Lightroom. Since I usually shoot in RAW, I find that Lightroom is more versatile and faster to use than Elements for tone, color, contrast, exposure, luminosity, hue and saturation adjustments. Lightroom also covers cropping and straightening, sharpening, noise reduction, lens correction, camera calibration, and horizontal or vertical transformation.

[seattleddc]

Thank you for both of these responses. Very informative.

[Andy]

Welcome to the forum seattleddc! I am both an Elements and a Lightroom user, as I find them complementary. It isn't really an either/or question. It depends on what you want to do. I find the Lightroom organizer much better than Elements, and I find it much faster to do basic edits (Hightlights, Shadows, Exposure, Contrast, etc.) on a large number of photos. For more serious work, I use PSE.

[michelb]

Jul 8, 2016 17:36:03 GMT Fauxtoto said:

Hi,

I am just beginning to learn Lightroom. Since I usually shoot in RAW, I find that Lightroom is more versatile and faster to use than Elements for tone, color, contrast, exposure, luminosity, hue and saturation adjustments. Lightroom also covers cropping and straightening, sharpening, noise reduction, lens correction, camera calibration, and horizontal or vertical transformation.

It's important to note that for tone, contrast, exposure, luminosity, hue and saturations adjustments, you have got the same features in the ACR module of the Elements Editor . And that is not limited to raw files, that module can deal with jpegs as well, like Lightroom. Cropping, straightening, sharpening and noise reduction are the same. Lens correction is left to the editor.
The features of Lightroom include other tools which would need the editor in the elements ACR version.
As a result, in my case, Lightroom could cover 95% of my editing without Elements while I can only cover 90% with the ACR module (I use the ACR module in nearly all my shots, raw or jpeg).
The advantage offered by the ACR module over the normal use of the editor only is the ability to reuse the same edits to many pictures while getting much finer edits. That saves me a lot of time when using the software trio: Editor, Organizer and ACR.

[michelb]

Jul 9, 2016 18:26:18 GMT Andy said:

Welcome to the forum seattleddc! I am both an Elements and a Lightroom user, as I find them complementary. It isn't really an either/or question. It depends on what you want to do. I find the Lightroom organizer much better than Elements, and I find it much faster to do basic edits (Hightlights, Shadows, Exposure, Contrast, etc.) on a large number of photos. For more serious work, I use PSE.

For organization, our needs may be different. I don't need a lot of the customization or services offered by Lightroom and I do know the organizer far better than Lightroom. That means that for 95% of my organization I find the organizer much faster and easier even with less powerful computers.
For the basic edits on large number of photos, see my other post. You simply have to decide to always work with the ACR module. There is still a lack of integration for editing jpegs in the ACR converter from the Organizer, and I would not be surprised is that is a trick of Adobe to push toward Lightroom...
If you are tempted with Lightroom, sure go for it. My remark is just to say that if you stay with Elements alone for budget reasons, you probably have much more power at hand than you think.

[seattleddc]

At this point, it seems like my time and effort would be better spend trying to as much about Elements as I possible can, rather than venture off in another direction. My belief is that if I was using Elements to even 75% of its capability I'd probably be happy. I'm probably using about 20% right now, if that.

[Sepiana]

Jul 10, 2016 10:30:20 GMT seattleddc said:

At this point, it seems like my time and effort would be better spend trying to as much about Elements as I possible can, rather than venture off in another direction.

Hi seattleddc, welcome to PSE&M!

If you are considering staying with Elements, you may want to download a free trial of Elements 14 to test the waters.  I noticed you have Elements 10.  In Elements 11 Adobe did a major overhaul of this program (which also included making major changes to the Organizer).

[seattleddc]

If I download the free trial, what would happen to any images I edit using PSE 14, if I choose not to buy it?

[Sepiana]

I don't believe there will be a problem if you decide not to purchase Elements 14.  Elements does not store your images; your Elements 14-edited images will be safe and sound wherever you store them -- your computer, an external HD drive, etc.

[Major Major]

The images remain on your hard drive, or wherever you store them. Only the program's operation is affected at the end of the trial.

[michelb]

Jul 10, 2016 18:12:40 GMT Major Major said:

The images remain on your hard drive, or wherever you store them. Only the program's operation is affected at the end of the trial.

Yes, no change to your images.
If you want to test the organizer, be aware that your old version catalogs will be converted to the new version (the old catalogs still available for your old Elements version, but renamed with a -1 suffix). You can convert old catalogs to the new format, not the other way round. So if you add and organize many new photo files in the new format, you can't convert the catalogs back if you stop the trial version. I think (not sure) that if you don't keep the new version, the version 14 organizer and its catalogs will remain available. In doubt, before stopping the trial, I would select all new files and 'write metadata to files' to be able to import those new files into the old version catalogs.