I have made a conscious decision to take the time to learn my camera, at this time, and not jump directly into the world of RAW processing. With that being said, I own Photoshop Elements 7 and I am wondering if there is any advantage to buying the software to upgrade to Photoshop Elements 8. I intend to shoot in JPEG.
What would I gain with the upgrade?
Tim
Concrete, Wa
Posted by David Bostedo on February 1, 2010 at 6:38 PM
Here's the Adobe comparison page Tim. And you can always download the trial version and use it for 30-days. Not really anything to lose from trying it, except a little time to download and install.
Posted by Greg Maklae on February 2, 2010 at 5:32 AM
The major change in 8 is the ability to do HDR processing. Unfortunately, when Adobe "upgrades", they do it at the cost of a different feature. That is why I have versions 4,5 and 8 loaded on my system. I use 4 for slide show presentations, 5, which added b/w conversion, for normal processing, and 8 for HDR.
I don't see a benefit, for me, in the HDR processing. I think that I will wait and pocket the upgrade money until I am confident enough to tackle RAW.
Tim
Posted by David Bostedo on February 2, 2010 at 3:48 PM
Actually Tim, you don't need to upgrade from PSE7 to tackle RAW necessarily. PSE7 already contains a version of Adobe Camera RAW, the same RAW software as that in the full version of Photoshop. So you don't have the most recent one, but have a very good one.
If it doesn't support your camera (because your camera is newer than the software), your only option is to convert your RAW files to DNG format using Adobe's free converter. (You can find it on the Adobe website.) It's an extra step, but pretty painless.
Posted by Cliff Young on February 8, 2010 at 10:25 AM
Tim, I have used PSE since entering the digital photography field in 2007, starting with Elements 5. I've also explored using Nikon Capture NX (which I also like) and Lightroom (for image management). However, when I made the switch from Windows to Apple Mac last year I tried Apple's own Aperture (brilliant for image management and basic processing) but I missed some of the detailed processing capabilities of PS. As Adobe don't allow cross-platform upgrades I bought a new version of PSE 8 and think this is where I will stay. For me, shooting in RAW, the "full" PS Adobe Camera RAW version that ships with Elements 8 allows me to do the majority of my processing in RAW before putting the final touches, resizing, sharpening etc in Elements. Hope this helps. Cliff
Discussion
6 repliesWhat would I gain with the upgrade?
Tim
Concrete, Wa
That was very helpful.
Tim
Tim
If it doesn't support your camera (because your camera is newer than the software), your only option is to convert your RAW files to DNG format using Adobe's free converter. (You can find it on the Adobe website.) It's an extra step, but pretty painless.