jwohlhueter

It's my understanding and forgive me if I'm wrong, that Adobe took from Photoshop those commands that most applied to the manipulation of digital photography to create Lightroom. As well as adding a powerful photo management system.

This short magazine article may be of service in comparing each:
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/the-best-photo-editing-software

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I maintain my own custom/created named folders on my harddrive simply because I've always worked that way with photographs, documents, mail, downloads, etc. I also find it much easier to maintain backups using this approach.

Workflow for photos:
1) Create new folder on harddrive
2) Move/copy photos from memory card to new folder
3) Import photos to Lightroom
4) Pre/postprocess photos
4a) Maybe export preprocessed images to Photoshop for further postprocessing
5) Export final results to new folder/Upload subdirectory
6) Relax

Just my way of handling photographs...

bwa

tennis2618

I am confused by the terms being used in the discussions about L/R. There is now L/R Classic CC and L/R CC. Based on some of the comments I believe some relate to L/R CC. I use both-Classic CC on my desktops and CC with my iPad and iPhone(which has really too small a screen for this editing). I suggest the CCrangle be careful with these comments. His/her question was focused on either CC or Classic, correctly.

Bullfrog Bill Loc: CT

All could be done in LR by importing directly into LR, relax early! But if it works for you, so be it.

rond-photography Loc: Connecticut

I think you misread my statement. I am not talking about how many photos you have in your library. I am talking about when you set the camera to high speed burst mode and shoot the football game or birds in flight, and lots of other shoots where you come home with 500 to 2000 photos and you need to get through them and pick out the 4 or 5 that work.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I realize that and teach this approach in an Introduction to Lightroom course I offer once a year to our local camera club; however, I got fixed in my ways about 50 years ago...

bwa

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

I've used PS Elements for years (think from version 1 or 2). Have no use for Lightroom as the Organizer in PSE works fine for me. I'm retired on a limited income, so don't want a monthly bill, even just $10. Still much to learn about PSE.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Lightroom is only available by subscription now, in combination with Photoshop.

Lightroom is primarily an image organizing and archiving tool, with light editing capabilities. Most of the adjustments in Lightroom are "global" in nature, meaning that the entire image is effected by them. For example, you can change the white balance/color rendition and adjust exposure with Lightroom. It can also be used to set up a crop or straighten image. It has retouch tools such as a clone/healing brush and a gradient filter, but these are quite crude and cannot be used very precisely. Those things are better done, along with other selective adjustments, in Photoshop. In fact, Lightroom and Photoshop are designed to work together, to complement each other. For example, you can do retouching in Photoshop right down to the individual pixel level, if you wish. And you can use Layers & Masks in Photoshop to make selective adjustments, which is not possible in LR.

In other words, LR isn't a "complete" image editing program and PS isn't a very good image organizing program. Some people who only "finish" there images lightly get by using only LR.... While some people who work with fairly few images or have another method of organizing them get by using only PS.

With Elements, you get "light" versions of both, ability to both edit images more fully and to organize your images, all in one.

If you let your subscription expire with LR & PS, the work you've done with them doesn't disappear, but you can't do any new work.

Elements is instead sold outright with a perpetual license. It will continue to work, with no additional cost, until you decide to replace it to acquire some new feature that Adobe adds to a new version or buy a newer camera that requires a newer version.

Elements combines many features & capabilities from both LR & PS.... While those are sort of two sides of a coin, Elements more of a stand-alone though a "lighter" software version.

Elements is an "8 bit" software. This simply means that you can only save 8 bit file types from it (i.e., JPEGs). These are fine for most purposes. 16 bit file types (TIFF, PSD) are more likely to be wanted for commercial purposes (and are overkill for most personal use).

At the core of Elements, Lightroom and Photoshop is Adobe Camera Raw. This is the "engine" that's used to convert RAW files from cameras into usable image files. Because of this, there's not much difference between them when working with RAW files. In effect, you'll be "working" the files in 16 bit mode with any of them. You just can't save an image as a 16 bit file from Elements.

Elements has built-in support for new users. You can choose guided "Beginners" interface, or less guided "Intermediate" or unguided "Expert".

Lightroom and Photoshop have no built in support. Plan to take classes... online or locally... and buy some books. Lightroom is reasonably easy to learn, most people get up to speed using it in a month or two. Photoshop is far more complex. Figure on spending up to a year taking classes and/or reading books to really master it. I've been using Photoshop since the mid-1990s and am still learning things about it!

There are Youtube videos for all three programs, to help learn specific techniques.

There are "plug-ins" to enhance all three programs, available from various third party vendors. Some are free. Others have some costs.

Elements 2019 is currently on sale for $70 and you can use it until you feel need to buy a newer version.

Lightroom & Photoshop CC are $10 a month ($120 for a year, prepaid), from now to eternity.... unless Adobe decides they want more profits and "raise the rent".

I use Lightroom 6.14 and Photoshop CS6 (final licensed versions of both). As I understand it, "Lightroom Classic" is the "full version" (similar to what I use) and "Lightroom CC" is a mobile version for tablets and other devices with storage limited space.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

When one learns the ins and outs of Bridge, which comes with Photoshop, one realizes that it's an organizing program on steroids, significantly better than Lightroom, and the best thing is that Bridge will NEVER lose a photo or file folder, unlike an all-too-common complaint about Lightroom.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

That's because you can't. PSE is closer in form and function to Photoshop. Both have a raw editor and a browser, and both are suitable for complete image finishing. LR is an organizational database for digital asset management and a raw converter, with a book publisher, print module, geotagging/map module, web publisher, and slideshow module. It also does tethered shooting with certain cameras. I have found it to be less than reliable.

Lightroom is a "workflow" application that speeds up many time consuming tasks, but it is not an image finishing program. Anyone that claims that it is sufficient, isn't really properly finishing their images. I have seem tons of so called finished images out of LR, and there hasn't been one that could not have been improved with some additional post processing - and not just more adjustments in a raw converter. LR and most raw converters are notoriously weak at local adjustments - but both PSE and Photoshop do offer the "photo finishing" component. Layers, masks, pixel level editing, smart objects, color channels, etc all provide the backdrop for some seriously precise editing - the type that is just not possible in a raw converter. The newer raw converters offer some pseudo-layers and better local editing than Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, but nothing comes close to a full-blown pixel editor.

PSE is an abbreviated version of PS, and most of the editing is only 8 bit (internal editing is done in 16 bit, but output is 8 bit - at least the last time I took a look at it). It offers some guided modes, an "expert" mode, but it has some important functions not available.

I don't agree with the graduated learning method where you start with PSE and move to PS - you can do that entirely within PS. You don't have to learn ALL of PS in order to make use of it. And with the seemingly infinite number of choices available to do just about anything, you can learn the easy way, the more difficult way, the expert way, and the perfect way to do any of these tasks - depending on your skill level (which will always continue to improve) and what your expectations are for the image quality (how fussy you are about the little details). Put simply, you can do more with PS than you can with PSE.

KiheiVillages

Photoshop existed before digital cameras became popular.
It was more of a photo layout program for say, a magazine page creator.
A photographer would need to digitize paper photographs or slides, before using an image
in a computer program like Photoshop. Once in the computer, the "photographer" could swap and manipulate parts of several photos, to make a composite. Add text, change colors, contrast, resize.
After awhile PS could do anything an imagination could think of. It was mind bending.
Of course most of this had little to do with film photography. But many photographers, saw the future; computers!
I consider PSE as the poor man's PS. I never could afford modern versions of PS. I think almost anything can be done on PSE, for the common photographer.
LR came into existence as a digital computer program, strictly for the photographer.
Using parts of Photoshop, and reimagined for a photographers brain. Layers and masking as we know it, were removed, yet some of the same results can be had in a more uncumbersome, and easier way.
But, if a photographer is well founded in PS, they usually aren't interested in learning a new way to do the same things they already can easily do in PS.
For the price of one Meal at the burger place, you can use the latest version of PS and LR for a month.
Many go out to eat more than one time a month. So you're sacrificing one burger meal, for a thousand dollar photo suite. Sounds good for this poor man!

Tracy B. Loc: Indiana

I just purchased PSE 2019. I moved up from PSE 14. I also have Topaz Studio with a few plug Ins like: Adjust (favorite), DeNoise, Clairty and Detail. I don't use the organizer. I have my own system and it works for me.

don26812 Loc: South Bay of Los Angeles, CA

Very good summary.

KiheiVillages

There is a not free but cheap addon to PSE , I have used. It allows / opens up some PS abilities that PSE has under the surface. I think it's called "Elements+".
Check it out!
I used PSE for years. It is a deep program.
It has some powerful features missing from lightroom. Spot healing brush has ai attributes.
If a garden hose is laying across dirt, then lawn, the german shepard with multi colored fur, and a colorful blanket, you can simply "paint" over the hose with a
Small brush. And Voila! The hose is gone, and the untrained eye can't see where it was. Especially if they didn't know a hose was there. Now that's way more powerful than what LR can do.
PSE also has artistic and semi controllable effects you can add onto your image.
With that said, if you are really into creating photographs ( digital or hardcopy ), Lightroom
Is tops in my opinion. Especially if you want to learn the amazing things it can do. I have developed a reverse stenciling technique, that would take 10 x more time and effort to process in Photoshop.
You can paint with gradiant light effects, and add in any amount needed, with microscopic precision.
The artistic control seems endless and is easy on the brain.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

A majority of the people on UHH are using LR Classic. There are a few of us who use both but we are in the minority.