elements7 to cs5 upgrade

[mikone]

Can I expect an install of cs5 from elements 7 to be similar as elements 5 to 6upgrade or will it be a whole other ball game ? Do any of the existing photo's and folders transfer from the organizer? Thanks for any help. Mike

[GeoffWessex]

Don't forget the Organizer does not hold folders - it just keeps tabs of where the pictures are (and has a system of tags).... but there are no Organizer folders. In CS5 there is no Organizer! Organizer catalogs, by the way, are not compatible with Bridge or Lightroom catalogs.

So you will find all your pictures wherever you put them before - in my case, that's in "My Pictures" in dated folders. Now, if you keep Elements 7 (with its Organizer) on your system, you could carry on using it for cataloging, with tags and all the other things - and when it comes to taking one from there to edit you can use the CS5 Editor..... though I'm not sure how this works (I don't have CS anything)..... go to the Organizer, Edit > Preferences > Editing - check the "Use a Supplementary Editing Application" box and put the path to the CS5 Editor's exe file in the box. May work, may not. It gives an extra "Edit with...." option in the Edit menu. It's a bit clumsy perhaps, but if you're a big Organizer user it may suit you.

[mikone]

Thanks for the timely answer. Now it makes sense why lightroom is a good companion to cs. Still have to decide if cs5 at a really good price is justified if elements 8 does 90% of what I need. Thanks again

[GeoffWessex]

Elements certainly does 90% of what most photographers need - just check out a few of the tutorials in the magazines and on here - many quite complex things can be done in either CS or Elements (sometimes they seem to be interchangeable on those video tutorials.... they say it's a "Photoshop tutorial" for something and then it turns out to be all done in Elements. Just look at the current bunch of videos called "Teach Yourself Photoshop".... they're done in Elements!

My personal ideal combination would be Lightroom and Elements.... even if the "Organizer" features are duplicated in Lightroom. You'd still get to use both. "Organizer", by the way, is not even part of the Elements Mac version - so they'd need Aperture or Bridge, I think.

Biggest thing missing from Elements? It cannot do any editing (other than basic crops etc) in 16-bit..... a bit silly not to include that, as even Paint Shop Pro Photo can do it (and it's a tad cheaper). You won't miss it much most of the time, but eventually you'll get to a point where it's annoying not to have the capability. See this info at the excellent Digital Photography School.