Comments on: Why Lightroom Users Should Seriously Consider Adding Photoshop Elements To Their Workflow

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 04:32:04 +0000

@Ben, Apologies for the delayed reply.
1) Lightroom works well with JPEGs. I use it to manage my DSLR and cameraphone output and it works just as easily with JPEGs as it does with RAW/DNG.
2) LR3 organiser is superior when working with the type of volume you are referring to. I used to use Element’s Organiser then swapped over to Lightroom. I haven’t looked back, and keep Elements purely for “pixel pushing”.
3) The Lightroom and Elements catalogs are completely separate. I tend to work purely in Lightroom’s catalog and use my Elemental plugin to open directly from Lightroom into the Elements Editor. That way I don’t need to maintain an Elements catalog because I bypass Organiser entirely.
4) I just used PSE9 to convert a PSE5 catalog I had lying around on my HDD. Seems to have worked fine so your PSE6 catalog update should work fine. FYI I created my initial LR2 catalog by converting from PSE6 so that path should work for you as well.
5) As long as you store the catalog somewhere on the computer that you both have write access to, both users will be able to access the same catalog. Be aware that the Lightroom preferences are specific to the logged on user so you might need to tweak some preferences twice though depending on who is logged in at the time.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 04:10:41 +0000

@Jerry, Yes it will work with LR3 and PSE9. It may not automatically detect the location of the editor, depending upon your environment (especially if it is 64 bit), but in that case you can manually configure the editor location. I’m currently working on an update that will improve the automatic detection of the Photoshop Elements version.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:32:27 +0000

Will your plugin work between LR3 and PSE9?

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 04:12:57 +0000

I am considering buying both LR3 and PE9 for my digital photo hobby. Before buying them both, though, I had a few questions:

1. If my camera does not produce RAW files, is LR3 still worth it? (no, I’m not changing my camera — the pics it takes are beautiful, and I simply can’t carry much weight (big camera, big lenses) on my photo travels).

2. I shoot a lot of pics — 3 to 7 thousand per vacation. I have an 8TB RAID drive holding them all right now. File organization is thus very important to me. Is the Organizer in either LR3 or PE9 superior to the other? And does either LR3 or PE9 recognize changes to file location that are done in Windows Explorer (as opposed to inside LR3 or PE9)? This has been one of my biggest problems with PE6 — it’s just easier to do this stuff in Explorer.

3. If I have both LR3 and PE9, do they both access the same Catalog, or do I have to create a separate Catalog for each? In other words, if I import new photos from my camera into my computer using just LR3, does my PE9 recognize that Catalog? Can I open that Catalog without turning on LR3 (by just using PE9)? And vice versa?

4. I currently have PE6. If I upgrade to PE9, will it recognize my old PE6 Catalog? (believe it or not, I called Adobe and they could not answer that question; at least, they said they wouldn’t answer the question unless I could give them the serial number to my PE9 copy).

5. I have a desktop computer (PC) which is largely dedicated to photography tasks. My wife and I are both “Users” on this computer, so she can log on to “her side” of the computer, and I can log onto “my side.” Can we both access the same Catalog? Regardless of whose “side” of the computer it’s saved on?

Sorry for all the questions. I have more, but I’ll stop there.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 22:49:21 +0000

@Pierce, It is hard for the plugin to know where you are going to save the modified image. The easiest way to get the result back into Lightroom is to use the “Synchronize Folder” feature On Windows you right click on the folder in the Library module’s Folders panel, select Synchronize Folder from the context menu, then follow the steps to bring the image back into Lightroom. I’m planning to do away with the need for this in a future release but it is challenging to do this in a “bulletproof” way catering for all of the individual workflows out there.

By: pierce

pierce — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:50:20 +0000

Hi
I am using your plug in Thank you. Question? When I edit in PSE8 how do I save such that the altered image is then back in LR3. When I currently go back to LR3 I am only seeing the original unaltered image.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:48:02 +0000

@Dave, yes I tested this with LR3 and PSE8 during the beta cycle. It worked fine during the tests. Are you curious or do you have an issue to report?

By: dave

dave — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:08:21 +0000

Have you tested your plugin with LR3 and PE8?

By: Pico

Pico — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:13:41 +0000

I really like the integration that your plugin provides between LR and PSE7. I only wish that the later one was not such a resource hog.

Thanks for the great job.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:26:58 +0000

@Nigel, I agree Photoshop is a great piece of software. I’m just suggesting that Photoshop Elements is good enough for many hobbyists and their photography would be better served by putting the extra dollars towards a better lens etc. Only you can determine which of the options best suits your individual needs though.