|
I definitely feel it's a wise choice to not pay hundreds for CS5..... I think both Elements and Photoplus will do a good job for you. Even the fact that you use Lightroom doesn't have a bearing on your choice, as you can choose which program to open files in from LR.
As to which is better...... I would have said Elements (having used different versions for about eight years now) but I think it's neck and neck between them. Elements has a couple of advantages - it's very like full Photoshop and can benefit from many of the same Actions and Plug-Ins; there are more books, magazines and web tutorials for Elements (and many of those based on CS can be used).
Photoplus has less going for it in the way of tutorials and books etc but it generally follows the same editing techniques, with layers and masks. It can also use the same plug-ins (but not Actions) and I think it's cheaper (69 pounds). It can do editing of 16-bit files (Elements, in the main, cannot). The Serif website has many free templates.
I don't think you can go wrong with either of them.
|