what graphics program should i get?

[kiffy]

hi guys, i hope this isnt a newbie question thats been asked and answered in the past, although i looked i do fear it may be...

ive just had my slr and seeing how much of a difference i get playing with raw files want to buy a software package that will sort them plus a whole lot more. i dont (yet)do much photo repair editing and my current program is one i had bundled free with a scanner 12 years ago so as you may guess its about as powerfull as my calculator..

ive had a quick nose round and seen theres a few which stand out, id obviously like to go with photoshop CS5 as itll do everything and more.. but the price! so im looking at photoshop elements v8. a lot more sensible on the pocket, but is it upto what i want?

steve

[AndyStevens]

Steve, for most people, Elements is fine - it can handle most post processing needs and the cataloguing is very good (or so I hear), I use Lightroom for cataloguing.

[kiffy]

catalogings not an issue for me, i have several thousand photos on my website and i have five copies of each in various sizes and with and without watermark and ive got a system of keeping them organised as i like it. what im looking for is something which will improve on the raw adjustments on canons own software (which looks ok to me anyway, but i am a learner) and something that i can do photo manipulation and photo editing, in particular photo repair

[AndyStevens]

Elements should be fine - go to www.adobe.com and download the trial. Both Photoshop and Elements use the same Adobe Camera Raw convertor and Elements has pretty much everything a photographer could need. It's a good place to start and, if you feel the need for extra tools later, at least you've spent £60 now and upgraded later instead of several hundred now and not used 90% of the tools.

I use Photoshop CS5 and have only really scratched the surface - I bought into PS a long time ago so only need to buy upgrades so it kinda makes sense for me to stay with PS. If I was starting out now, I'd buy Elements!

[kiffy]

i got hold of elements and it looks a cracking program, i repaired one old photo and it did it in seconds where id normally take a half hour or more... a worthy investment

[donoreo]

Elements 9 is rocking. I love the new content aware healing brush. It is neato nifty.

[kiffy]

thats what i was playing with last night, not perfect but damn close