December 2011 - Digital Group - CS5 vs Elements 10

Meeting Notes March 2009 to 2018.
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spb
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Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:04 pm

December 2011 - Digital Group - CS5 vs Elements 10

Post by spb » Sat Dec 03, 2011 1:27 pm

PRINTING

We discussed photo printing with the beginners group and I promised to mention three online photo printing sites that members have recommended;
- Photobox
- BPD Photech
- ProAm Imaging

NEWS

Many of us had seen the coverage in the newspapers of 'Rhein II' by Andreas Gursky. One of six prints of this featureless landscape has just sold for £2.7M. We all agreed that it would attract a low score in a club competition. It was explained by the author as describing how we are 'living on a planet that is going at enormous speed through the universe'. A case of the Emperor's New Clothes wethinks.

dpReview have an interesting round-up of 10 Third-Party Lenses For Enthusiasts which might be highly relevant to DSLR owners as Christmas approaches.

iPHONE 4S

My experience with the iPhone 4S continues. After solving some software issues with the phone, I discovered that one of the volume buttons was stuck. The Apple Store in Regent Street swapped the phone for a new one without hesitation but I was struck by the sheer volume of customers in there with hardware and software problems - in the region of 100 in the half an hour I was there. These were not all iPhones, it should be said.

Having now got a fully functional iPhone I have been experimenting with the 8Mpx camera and am impressed with it's quality. I entered a shot from it in the DPI competition on Monday and it was felt by everyone to show remarkable clarity. I am still exploring the world of camera-based apps for the iPhone but have already acquired the following;
- Pro Camera £1.99p which adds anti-shake, continuous flashlight, independent white balance, exposure and focus setting, remote trigger and rapid fire features
- Pro HDR £1.49p which generates an automatic 2-shot HDR image whilst keeping the originals for re-processing on the PC if required
- Hipstamatic £1.49p for retro lens, and film effects
- Slow Shutter Cam 69p for control over long exposures and offering real-time preview as the image 'cooks'
- Pocket Light Meter £Free for a light meter, in your pocket, that's free.
- You Gotta See This! £1.49p for David Hockney-esque joiners

I will report back on how these fare in the coming weeks but it seems to me that they herald the beginning of a revolution in photography. In just the same way that new TVs have to be able to connect to the Internet, I feel that future cameras will have to be able to run Apps to add functionality at the point of image capture rather than rely on this when post-processing the image which is rather like having to wait for the chemist to develop your pictures - how old-school is that?

PHOTOSHOP CS5 vs PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 10

The recent announcement from Adobe that an upgrade price for CS6 will only be available from CS5 has caused an outcry in the photographic world and accusations of extortion and exploitation of it's loyal users. This prompted me to question why I use the full version of Photoshop (£580) rather than Elements (£65) which I recommend to our members,

Here is my analysis of the differences;

Firstly, both have all of the essentials; Layers, Tools, Masks, Plug-ins, Filters, Selections, Adjustments and Adobe Camera Raw.

The following are not in Elements 10 but there are perfectly acceptable alternatives or work-arounds (for me);
- Color Balance - use the red, green and blue channel drop-down in Levels instead
- Vibrance - this affects less saturated colours only and is still available in Elements in Adobe Camera Raw(ACR)
- Channels - there used to be a free plug-in for this in earlier versions of elements (?) In any case, rarely necessary
- Channel Mixer - mainly used for colour to mono conversion. There are many good alternatives see downloadable paper on mono group page of this APS website
- Selective Colour - Magic Wand or Replace Colour are similar enough for most purposes
- Full Curves - if the limited version of Curves is not sufficient, download the free SmartCurve tool for full functionality
- Patch Tool - never essential. The Clone Tool or Healing Brushes are excellent. Also note the Content Aware setting for the Spot Healing Brush
- Screen Mode - the Tab key cleans up the screen to view the image against a neutral backgound
- Smart Objects - an aid to non-destructive editing but never essential
- Vanishing Point - to clone in perspective. Can be done in two steps with Transform
- Layer Styles - mainly useful for text. Similar effects can be achieved with the Effects Palette
- support for 64bit operating systems. Elements is a 32bit application which runs perfectly happily under a 64bit operating system.

The following are not in Elements 10 and there is no work-around. However I would hardly miss them; Slice Tool & other website features, Pen Tool, Paths and Vector Masks, Puppet Warp, CMYK, LAB, Offset printing support and Video.

Elements 10 benefits from some features which are not in CS5; Smart Brushes, Projects such as greetings cards and calendars, Social Media Interfaces. Most significantly, Elements is aimed at less skilled users and the quirky terminology of Photoshop CSx has been improved to help them. Helpful features such as Guided Edits are also invaluable and should not be underestimated to ease the learning curve which, for CSx is very steep and uncompromising.

CSx includes Bridge which is a powerful image browser but free alternatives such as Faststone or XnView are highly recommended.

Elements 10 includes the Organizer which is a powerful image database but alternatives such as Picasa (£Free) or Lightroom (£180) are excellent.

Finally there are the small number of omissions that may be potential dealbreakers for some people. Elements 10 does not support;
- recording Actions (although they can be played back)
- Proofing
- more advanced ACR conversion features
- support for 16 bit colour beyond the very basics
- some additional Adjustment Layers found in CSx

In conclusion, I am convinced that anybody starting out with Photoshop should opt for a recent version of Elements. Experienced users of Photoshop CSx may really need the few extra features but if the list of potential dealbreakers above, means nothing to them, they can convert to Elements with minimal re-learning.

Cheers, Steve.

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