photodoc16

Hogs and Hogettes,
I am about to make the switch from Elements to PS and LR. Can I store photos in LR and still drop them into Elements as well? Just my own insecurities asking.
Photodoc16

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Why hold onto Elements, physically or mentally, when moving to the advanced Adobe tools?

To your question, yes. The various Adobe software do not replace / remove / impact any existing software. They just obsolete the other software.

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

"Why hold onto Elements, physically or mentally, when moving to the advanced Adobe tools?"
To allow you to use what you are familiar with before learning another.
There will be no problem.

photodoc16

CHG CANON,
Thanks. Do all of my images currently stored in Elements automatically migrate over to Lightroom?
Photodoc16

photodoc16

Thanks. That is a factor.
Photodoc16

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Yes and no. It depends. And it will take some experimentation to figure out exactly how it works. It also depends on your choice of Lightroom or Lightroom Classic.

In Classic, adjustments are stored in a database. The original is NEVER modified. So, Elements would not "see" your work from Classic. But (!), there is an option (!) in Classic that additionally saves your adjustments to a "sidecar file". Elements would (probably) read that sidecar file, especially for RAW images.

Best of all, Classic as an "Edit in" command. You can "edit in" any program you've set up. Both Photoshop CC and Photoshop Elements can be used. Classic has a cleaver way of creating a duplicate, opening it in one of the Photoshops and displaying it next to the original in the Library module.

Using Elements with Classic is an old workflow. Back in the day (!) we bought Lightroom and it didn't come with Photoshop CC. So we also bought Photoshop Elements so we could work the two together, as needed, for best effect. Photoshop, the real one, was far too expensive. Now for a measly $10 we get Photoshop, 5 Lightrooms and a Portfolio website.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Personally, I'm unsure if there's an automated migration of PSE organizer to LR catalog. If you were doing an LR to LR version change, the LR software would prompt you if you want to import the old LR catalog into the new LR catalog. I never used the PSE organizer in my very old PSE-10 so I can't speak from experience of the migration process. I would expect one or a few options exist. See if you can find any detailed discussion online, where maybe Adobe has created a migration tool for PSE organizer to LR.

If you can't find an automated process, consider:

Option 1 is to import all / any of your PSDs into LR via the LR Import dialog. This assumes you're storing PSDs of your edits from PSE.

Option 2 is to perform an 'export' from PSE to DNGs, I'm assuming is an available batch process from PSE. Then, import those DNGs to LR and consider them the new 'master' edit / status for every image. My PSE-10 has a batch process with a number of output file types. Of course, DNG isn't one of them. TIFF or highest quality JPEG would be the next logical choices, TIFF for your RAW source and JPEG for JPEG originals (and possibly the RAW).

Option 3 is to import the edited full-resolution JPEGs (or TIFF) of all legacy PSE edits. Again, these versions become the master of each image. If you find a need to continue to edit an image in the future, you'll start with the version as imported into LR. I guess this is the same as opt2 if your software doesn't export to DNGs in batch.

For me, the edit 'instructions' are just as important as the images. I'd rather have the edited versions than the unedited originals, but still, I'd prefer the originals and the edit instructions over just the edited results.

You'll have enough to worry about, but put down a mental marker for an eventual migration of all your original RAW files where you a) import into LR and b) stack the RAW with whatever edited image format you used for migration. This is a longer-term effort to assure LR becomes your one and only Digital Asset Manager of all your digital images, past, present and future.

alandg46 Loc: Boerne, Texas

Your pictures are not stored in Elements, nor will they be stored in Lightroom. They will be stored on your computer somewhere that you specify or they will be stored where the default location that Elements uses. For most people, they will be stored in the system folder "Pictures". If you then begin using Lightroom you would then import them into Lightroom by directing Lightroom to look in the appropriate location and leaving them where they are. You can move them using Lightroom but that would be unnecessary.

texaseve Loc: TX, NC and NH

This link explains how to get your catalog from Elements to LR. I would think that the catalog would still remain in the elements program, also. They both would point to the same photos wherever you have them stored on your computer, or external drive. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/how-to/elements-upgrade-creative-cloud-photography.html

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Photodoc16, here is your migration solution. ^^^

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

You do realize, I hope, that your images are not actually stored in either program. Both Elements and Lightroom use a catalog with pointers to the location of your images on your hard drive. All importing does is create catalog entries of their location. Unless you've copied them from their original location there will still only be one version of your images on your hard drive.

photodoc16

Thank you, CHG CANON,
Any RAW files I worked on in PSE were run through the woeful converter and were then opened as a JPEG.
There are a lot of images I am removing from my library in PSE and I could try to batch the rest if I have that capability, and get them to LR. However, it might be easier to simply let my PSE images stay in Elements and store any new images in LR. I am confused about Lightroom and Lightroom Classic in view of the above plan. I am not sure what the advantage of Classic would be. I am glad that I will 'have enough to
worry about.' I was hoping that would be the case.
The resources are so vast for learning LR and PS that I could be immobilized by the volume. Any words of advice?
Photodoc16

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You want LR classic installed, the full-power version that belongs on your primary image editor workstation. LRCC is for your mobile tablet with a limited set of edit tools for the quick work in the field. Don't make a LRCC mistake that we're correcting for people about once every week of late.

photodoc16

CHG CANON,
Sounds like you saved my butt on this one. Thanks very much.
Photodoc16

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

Wow, you’re a veritable font of misinformation.