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what to upgrade to?

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astone

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I don’t know and maybe somebody can help me. I have CS4 installed on my Mac and would like to upgrade it. Should I upgrade it to CS5 or to buy a Photoshop Lightroom 2? The cost of upgrading/buying is about the same. I’m an amateur taking shots with Canon 50d and Olympus E-P2 – travel, home, kids, and grandkids. Please I need suggestions. Thanks.
Alex
 
Hav you thought a out Apature 3? You can download it from the apple website and have full use of it for 30 days.
 
I do have Aperture 2 and have not been very impressed with it and to upgrade to Ap. 3 is still in my options. Thanks.
 
What do you want to accomplish with your software?

PS is a graphics editing program.

Lightroom (and Aperture) are photograph developing and asset management programs.
 
astone said:
I don’t know and maybe somebody can help me. I have CS4 installed on my Mac and would like to upgrade it. Should I upgrade it to CS5 or to buy a Photoshop Lightroom 2? The cost of upgrading/buying is about the same. I’m an amateur taking shots with Canon 50d and Olympus E-P2 – travel, home, kids, and grandkids. Please I need suggestions. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 are two different kinds of applications, not an upgrade for each other. They work very well together. Many who buy Lightroom find they use Photoshop CSx less and less. It depends what kind of work they do with their photographs. (I'm one of those folks ... )

So I'd suggest getting Lightroom and learning it, using it with Photoshop CS4. That's what I do today. I'd get CS5 if the additional features and capabilities of CS5 are desireable for my photo editing needs .. so far, CS4 does much more than I need there.
--
Godfrey
http://godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com
 
I use both. It all depends what you plan to do with them. I use Lightroom for 90% of the work I do. It has a library structure and I like that very much. It is both my photo manager and my Raw post-processor. PS is not just a graphics program as somebody else said. It shares many of the functions of Lightroom and uses a plug-in for Raw processing that is similar to the function of LR. PS does have some functions that LR doesn't and those are the things I do with PS.

The two bounce back and forth as to which is more up to date. As another poster said, they work really well together which is how I use them. LR3 is in Beta now so I'm wondering if it's work waiting for that and upgrading to CS5 now? There are some really neat functions in CS5.
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Ann Chaikin
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Thanks to everybody responding. I use CS4 ONLY for photo editing reasons. Still my question is the same as in my first post.
 
astone said:
Thanks to everybody responding. I use CS4 ONLY for photo editing reasons. Still my question is the same as in my first post.
Click to expand...
From your first post:
astone said:
I don’t know and maybe somebody can help me. I have CS4 installed on my Mac and would like to upgrade it.
Click to expand...
Why? What do you want to do that your current tools can't do? No one can reasonably recommend tools if they don't know to what end those tools will be used.
 
astone said:
Thanks to everybody responding. I use CS4 ONLY for photo editing reasons. Still my question is the same as in my first post.
Click to expand...
Lightroom is not a good editing tool, but it is a great workflow and PP tool.

I barely touch PS now that I have Lightroom, but if you want to do more than basic colour/curve/spot work, LR is not for you.

LR3 is going to be awesome for RAW workflow, though.
 
Maybe I missed something but unless you are shooting RAW I'd stay with CS4. Even then Adobe Camera Raw uses the same "engine" as Lightroom and you already have it as part of CS4. When it comes to image cataloguing (or asset management) Adobe Bridge does all I want and it also comes with CS4.

Lightroom is perhaps more suitable if you need pro level asset management and shoot RAW exclusively (although it processes jpgs as well). It surprises me that so many LR users still use CS4 for final editing when in my opinion CS4 does it all.
--
Bill Shinnick
 
Bill Shinnick said:
Maybe I missed something but unless you are shooting RAW I'd stay with CS4. Even then Adobe Camera Raw uses the same "engine" as Lightroom and you already have it as part of CS4. When it comes to image cataloguing (or asset management) Adobe Bridge does all I want and it also comes with CS4.

Lightroom is perhaps more suitable if you need pro level asset management and shoot RAW exclusively (although it processes jpgs as well). It surprises me that so many LR users still use CS4 for final editing when in my opinion CS4 does it all.
--
Bill Shinnick
Click to expand...
Bill,

That is exactly answer I was looking for. Look, the new CS% came and all of a sudden I learned that there is Lightroom there. I wanted to upgrade not because I need to but because there is an upgrade and I would like to upgrade. Yes, someone can say – it is a waste of money. I maybe agree. But the question was not about me wasting my money – the question was about what to upgrade to.

Now I think I understood. Lightroom is for some basic PP and organizing workflow and filing system. And Photoshop and Bridge would do the same slower and with more options of PP. is that correct statement?
Thanks again.
 
Kriekira said:
astone said:
Thanks to everybody responding. I use CS4 ONLY for photo editing reasons. Still my question is the same as in my first post.
Click to expand...
From your first post:
Kriekira said:
I don’t know and maybe somebody can help me. I have CS4 installed on my Mac and would like to upgrade it.
Click to expand...
Why? What do you want to do that your current tools can't do? No one can reasonably recommend tools if they don't know to what end those tools will be used.
Click to expand...
I do photoediting and nothing else (I still work - not retired) and would like to have all options available. I have no rush and no big volume – my 50-100 shots per month average to PP and print. I would like to upgrade because there is an upgrade and would like to weight all my options.
Thanks for participating.
 
There are many options available of PP tools. I’m not going to list them. After reading this forum on daily basis I came to a conclusion that this forum knows what could be the best for certain type of individuals and work to be done.

Actually, I will be reluctant to upgrade if there is a consensus here that I don’t need to do that.

Alex
 
I have both as well. Photoshop is a robust program and if it ain't broke why fix it?

If you only need something lighter Photoshop elements is a good program. It is the end result that matters not how much time it takes to edit an image IMO.
astone said:
I don’t know and maybe somebody can help me. I have CS4 installed on my Mac and would like to upgrade it. Should I upgrade it to CS5 or to buy a Photoshop Lightroom 2? The cost of upgrading/buying is about the same. I’m an amateur taking shots with Canon 50d and Olympus E-P2 – travel, home, kids, and grandkids. Please I need suggestions. Thanks.
Alex
Click to expand...
 
I just installed the CS5 upgrade yesterday. I bought it because I've had every version of Photoshop since PS5 (not CS5, plain 5). I think Photoshop is a subscription, not a simple product. I was interested too in context-aware fill, HDR Pro, natural media brushes. So far, I've been disappointed in context-aware fill, and haven't had time yet to explore other new features. I do not use Lightroom.

You might have a look at talk on the Retouching Forum.
--
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thanks a lot for your advise, but in this case I would rather upgrade it to Porsche or Mazeratti...
Cameraman777 said:
if you are interested in the best and the latest gears...
Click to expand...
 
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