amfoto1 wrote:
Bingo! We have a winner.
I was going to recommend PSE13 as a possible alternative, too.
$70 for Elements and it will very likely do all you need it to do (better than old PS6). The primary "downside" to PSE is that it works in 8 bit mode only. No 16 bit. But that might not matter to you and it has some of the most commonly used features of Photoshop and Lightroom, all in one. Elements also features three user-interface modes: easy, moderate and expert. This makes it easier to get started with, compared to the two larger programs (both of which have fairly steep learning curves).
Photoshop CS6, if you can find it, will cost you at least $500 (you need the full version because your really old PS6 doesn't qualify for an upgrade, if you can even find one).
If you only deal with relatively small numbers of images, you might be fine with CS6 alone. But if you want cataloging, keywording, and some other features, as well as high volume, large batch RAW conversions, you will want/need Lightroom 5 to complement it. To buy Lightroom 5 costs another $150. (Elements, on the other hand, is pretty comprehensive, although it's less widely capable than it's two "big brothers" ).
Some people get by with only Lightroom. It has "light" image editing and optimization capabilities... Personally I think of it as "proof quality", but finish images for any higher purpose in Photoshop. LR alone might be adequate for small prints, slide shows, online image sharing.
But LR and PS really are two sides of a coin, designed to complement each other. A lot of people find either one incomplete without the other.
An alternative to buying either PSCS6 or LR5 is to lease the two of them through Adobe's "cloud" program. $10 a month will get you both PSCC and LR5.x (latest versions). Pluses and minuses to this, too. The price is great, I figure works out about the same as I was spending buying occasional upgrades of the two. However, eventually I expect Adobe will increase the rent. (Adobe tried to charge 3X as much for PSCC alone initially, but went through about a half dozen price reductions and finally bundled with LR5, to get people to buy in... so you know for sure that they think it's worth a lot more!)
I wouldn't mind if Adobe offered a choice of buying or renting the software. It really irks me, though, that they are forcing folks to buy. My PSCS6 may be the last version of PS that I ever use, unless they change their marketing approach. I'm afraid that new cameras I might buy won't be supported by PSCS6, even though it's only 3 years old.
You also will want to look at the system requirements for these programs. Photoshop works best on a 64bit system and with 8GB or more of RAM. It also works better with a scratch disk (a second hard drive or a partition with about 100GB free space, for the software to use when working on images). One time when I upgraded cameras I also needed to update Photoshop, which needed a newer operating system than was on my computer, which also was marginal for processor, RAM and HD storage space.... so I ended up buying a whole new computer, too. That was one expensive camera upgrade! I try to stagger my upgrades now, so the hit to the wallet doesn't hurt so bad.
Bingo! We have a winner. br br I was going to re... (
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Thank you Amfoto1 for your comprehensive answer and I apologize for the tardy reply.
Seems to me that PSE13 will be the right choice, as you recommend. I might go for the PSCS6 + LR5 rented combo if PSE13 turns out insufficient; the rental price is good. But I don't want to get too much of a good thing from the most advanced software as only an amateur and not interested in videos or graphics work, and prefer to manage my folders of photographs myself. The old Release 6 used to be good enough for me but, as my use of that software intensified, it began freezing on me when the main storage use was approaching 1 GB.
Thanks for pointing out the computational requirements, fortunately my desktop and monitor are powerful enough.
Anyway, I hope to improve my work and eventually may need something more powerful. Thanks again.