pilgrim1951 Loc: New Jersey

Can Lightroom or Elements do more post production treatment on older jpegs than Picasa? Is either one better for working with RAW files? Trying to decide which direction to go from Picasa.

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

Yes, both Lightroom and Elements can do a lot more PP than Picasa - even on old jpeg files.

If your PP objectives are to manage light, color, luminosity etc., but not alter the underlying picture, I would recommend Lightroom.

If your PP objectives are to change the underlying picture itself by making composites, changing backgrounds, warping images etc., I would recommend Elements.

Many people end up with both Lightroom and Elements (or Lightroom and Photoshop) because they address different post processing needs.

Nic42 Loc: Cardiff, Wales

If you shoot in RAW then you should opt for Lightroom as Elements has a 'cut-down' version of the ACR Converter.

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

Lightroom is more dedicated to cataloging than is PSE. In my opinion, and I own both, PSE is the better PP program. If you purchase both you will have many of the features that the full blown version, PS, has. This is what many members, myself included, have done.

I download my files, normally raw, into LR. I then do my basic PP and if the photo needs fine tuning I then send it to PSE to do that.

Maybe I am biased because I owned and learned PSE for years before getting LR. This seems to be what many other UHH members do as well though. If I could only afford one or the other I would purchase PSE first and get LR later when I could afford it.

Jim D

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

My understanding and experience with PSE 11 and Lightroom 4 is exactly the opposite. Lightroom builds the ACR into the interface and some of the sliders have different names, but the processing engine and camera files are supposed to be the same.

papakatz45 Loc: South Florida-West Palm Beach

The RAW converter in Lightroom and PSE is essential the same. Lightroom's strong point is its ability to organize large collections of photos and it's ability to apply adjustments to a large number of files at the same time. However, I use PSE to organize just over 35k of photos with no problem.

MtnMan Loc: ID

I feel Lightroom is better than Elements for working with jpegs. Although you can open jpegs in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) with Elements it is a bit awkward.

Elements works fine for pictures saved initially as RAW. They automatically open in ACR on their way to the Editor. You may even be able to set up the batch processing to do some things to them but I never experimented that way.

I prefer Lightroom for working with RAW files because you can employ a preset that as a default applies camera-like jpeg settings when you download your RAW files. Thus there is no need to also create jpeg files in camera.

I convert my files to DNG upon upload.

MtnMan Loc: ID

I have pretty much the same experience as Jim D and agree with his final recommendation.

I just add if you purchase Elements also purchase Kelby and Kloskowski's book. It is a very comprehensive program and even though 11 greatly improved the user interface it still requires attentive learning. They are the best resource to get you through that. They took me from three months of frustrated trier to happy camper user in 3 days.

My only difference is that I also bought CS6 this year. Since I have it I use it for the editing that demands layers but agree with Jim D. that Elements is nearly as good for the Editing and much less expensive. The one thing I like in CS6 that Elements does not yet have is the context aware patch tool. But you can get away with the Elements clone tool instead in most cases.

I use his workflow as well, converting to DNG files when I upload into Lightroom. I will never upgrade CS6 and when its usefullnes ends go back to Elements for those detailed Editing jobs.