Originally posted by jasonwarth I disagree with the premise that editing tools are for making "a poor photo into a good one." Editing software serves the same purpose as many elements of a camera-system: optimizing the quality of your images.
Just as working in a dark-room once did. Sure. My point was garbage-in-garbage-out. I want to take the best source images I can, so I think it would make more sense for me to buy a better lens than spend the same amount on a piece of software. If I had all the lenses I could possibly need, it would perhaps make sense. I just bought a K-5iis, which has produced far more improvement in capture quality than a piece of software could ever achieve.
Quote: Good lenses are for making "poor photos into good ones," aren't they? Would you make the same argument against purchasing a high-end lens?
See above. It's a question of priorities.
Quote: The argument that you could buy a laptop or a DA*300 instead of Photoshop doesn't hold water. The full version of Photoshop CS6 is $699 (~ the price of a "Limited" lens); Photoshop Elements is $130 (~ the price of a used kit lens).
Did you read what I wrote about the price of photoshop to an Australian? The online price from adobe is AUD$1062. That's almost exactly the same as the black friday price for the DA300. PS Elements is AUD$131, yes.
Quote: I can't argue against the merits of Paintshop Pro because I know nothing about it. In fact—having looked it up just now, I'd say it looks (at first glance, at least) to be a pretty respectable offering. (That said—I'm sure there is a lot that you can do with PS that you can't with PSP.)
And there may well be stuff that PS does which I can't do with PSP. My point was that I doubt that there's enough value in the difference to justify the cost.
Quote: I just took a look on Adobe's site to see what Photoshop Elements is all about—and it doesn't look like a very sophisticated tool, frankly. (If so—I retract my earlier postulations about it being nearly fully featured… I may have been confusing it with some earlier "limited" version of Photoshop.)
As far as I know, it was created by Adobe to reduce the losses to products like PSP. That's why it's in that price bracket with the minimum set of photo editing tools so people can be encouraged to buy the "known and trusted" product.
Quote: Ultimately, I respect where you're coming from, and if you're happy with your output—that's what matters most in the end. My argument is less about Photoshop (as the exclusive solution), and more about my belief that editing software can add tremendous value to the quality of imagery, and that digital photographers would be wise to consider their choice of software tools as seriously as they consider their choice of hardware (camera, lenses, etc.).
Oh, in that respect I agree absolutely.
Quote: In actuality—if I had to argue in favor of one application, it would be Adobe Lightroom—which is awesome, and only $150 for the full version. RAW + Lightroom 4 = no brainer.
I should give a trial copy a go.
Quote: On the topic of piracy—I wholeheartedly believe that part of Adobe's strategy in the past not only involved encouraging piracy, but also making it easy to achieve.
Could be. I'm not sure. I don't use cracked software. That's another reason why I find programs which are so expensive hard to justify.
Glad we could agree on the editing issue.