Elements, light room, topaz

ajaxmgr · 05-12-2011, 04:45 AM

I just purchased elements 9 and have played with topaz adjust. At this point I have ruled out ps, because I don't intend on getting that deep into the creative side of things.but I like to improve my photos. Should I purchase topaz to supplement elements or light room. Then what about the NIK software? Like the ease of use with topaz adjust, but haunt used any of the other topaz plug ins. Thoughts???

loco · 05-12-2011, 05:20 AM

I'm no expert, but I have Elements 9. (I do not have Topaz Adjust and am not familiar with it.) If you shoot RAW, you can get Adobe Camera Raw for Elements which can do most of the things Lightroom can do in post-processing photos. Where Lightroom shines is in its organizing and cataloguing abilities. If you need that, Lightroom is an excellent addition. I pretty much use Lightroom for everything, except resizing photos which I still do in Elements. I do prefer LR's post-processing over Camera Raw.

reeftool · 05-12-2011, 07:17 AM

I've been using Elements for 3 years, starting with v.6 and last fall upgraded to Elements 9 when I upgraded my computer. I did the 30 day trial of Lightroom last winter and was kind of neutral on it. It was nice but I really couldn't see that much of an advantage to justify the $299 price for my uses. Adobe recently has had a couple of offerings of Lightroom to registered Elements users for $99 and I jumped on the most recent. (It's still in effect BTW, It's in the email offerings I got yesterday) After a couple of weeks of doing a lot of RAW shooting, I'm starting to appreciate the purchase. It works well with Elements for those shots that need a little more. I have used Picasa for my photo organizing for a long time but I have had problems with it since I upgraded to Win 7/64 bit. It looses my thumbnails so finding what I'm looking for is no longer an easy task which is another reason for the Lightroom switch. I haven't used any Topaz plugins so I can't comment but they are available for trial use. I use Noiseware for my high ISO cleanups.

**mtngal** · 05-12-2011, 12:41 PM

I've used Lightroom since the original beta and like it very much for keeping things organized. The Topaz Labs plug-ins work with both PS/PSE and Lightroom, they don't have different versions for each program. I'm not keen on Adjust, it doesn't quite suit me for some reason. On the other hand, I couldn't live without Denoise and Detail (which I use for sharpening rather than USM, I've found settings I like). And I use Remask on occasion, it does a nice job of creating selections. While I've used Clean and Simplify once in a great while, I find that they are sort-of specialized, fun to play around with occasionally but not something I couldn't do without.

Nik's software is much more expensive, especially if you buy the versions that will work in Photoshop as well as Lightroom. I love Viveza and have the full version of it. Then I ended up buying the complete set for Lightroom only - couldn't justify spending the money for the set that also works with Photoshop. The main ones I use besides Viveza are HDR Efex and Silver Efex 2. I occasionally use Color Efex, but while it's fun to play with, it's not something I use very often. Their noise reduction plug-in works, but Denoise is just that much better. And I didn't particularly care for their sharpening program all that much, never found settings that I liked.

Best thing to do is download the trial versions and play with them before buying. You might find one that you thought you would like but don't, and another one that you suddenly fall in love with and didn't expect to.

nosliwmit · 05-12-2011, 07:41 PM

Hi.
I've got all three--Elements, Topaz and Lightroom--but only picked up the two latter programs recently, so not claiming any expertise.
I use PS Elements (still on v.7) and just last week bought Lightroom (due to the $99 deal that I couldn't afford to not take advantage of). I also bought the Topaz suite a couple of weeks ago, and I've already been able to rescue a couple of really weak photos with it. I even got some value out of the remask plug-in the other day...
I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to use both Picasa and Lightroom. Picasa has some features that I'm not yet willing to let go of--I like the screen saver and the ease of sharing photos with friends/family. I may try using Lightroom for general cataloging and then exporting (maybe at lower resolution) favorite photos to be used in Picasa for sharing and screen saver...
The Topaz plug-ins are, for the most part, for pretty specialized manipulation of photos. Lightroom is really more for cataloging and maintenance of photo collections though it has powerful tools for "standard" post-processing needs.

The suggestion of downloading the trials is a good one, though it takes a certain investment in time to learn and see the value of a complex program like Lightroom, whereas the Topaz plug-ins are less of a commitment... There are some good tutorials on the web for the Topaz plug-ins.

**Michaelina2** · 05-13-2011, 04:13 AM

My pp toolbox contains PS7, PSE8, LR3.4, Topaz, and NIK for LR, plus QImage for print processing. PS7/PSE8 are used to resize images, only. LR3.4 is my workhorse. Topaz and NIK for LR fine tune things. Both NIK and Topaz are very elegant programs. I use both of them. My preference between the two is NIK for LR due to its ability to isolate an issue and address a small part in an image. Topaz seems more global than NIK.

In order to choose between Topaz and NIK, you really need to attend their free webinars. The presentations are excellent. Moose Perterson's recent webinar for NIK was very helpful. It was an eye-popping experience to watch him move between the program tools with such confidence and ease.

For me, it's time or money. Once you learn how things fit together, what might take an experienced user hours to do in PS can be done in less than two minutes with NIK for LR, or Topaz.

...my 2 cents...

ajaxmgr · 05-16-2011, 05:17 AM

Thanks for all your suggestions. I played with Adjust and Vizenza (sp) and like the upoint tech in NIK. It was very easy to use and did some neat things with a sunset that I don't know if I could have done with adjust. So, I think I am leaning that way. I would like to use the HDR package in NIK but am using PSE 9 and it doesn't work with the 32 bit version of PSE 9, and I can't see buying another program just to run that. Photomatix looks like a work around for HDR. I tried a shareware program over the week end that had recieved some good coments, I think it was FDR Tools, just didn't like it. Didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. Thoughts on the HDR issue?

ajaxmgr · 05-16-2011, 05:19 AM

**Michaelina2** · 05-16-2011, 04:36 PM

If you are curious to see how Moose Peterson uses the NIK tool kit for PS (NIK for LR and Aperture work in an almost identical way), click the link, below:

Nik Webinar Posted : Moose Peterson's Website

Even though he shoots Nikon and I use a K-5 with NIK for LR, I found many things in common and the webinar to very useful.

Enjoy...

ajaxmgr · 05-17-2011, 05:45 AM

I started one of his webinars on Nik yesterday, really interesting. Im going try to finish it tonight

ajaxmgr · 05-17-2011, 05:48 AM

Talked to the customer svc rep at Nik yesterday, she told me the HDR module was stand alone.

05-12-2011, 04:45 AM	#1
ajaxmgr Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 54	Elements, light room, topaz I just purchased elements 9 and have played with topaz adjust. At this point I have ruled out ps, because I don't intend on getting that deep into the creative side of things.but I like to improve my photos. Should I purchase topaz to supplement elements or light room. Then what about the NIK software? Like the ease of use with topaz adjust, but haunt used any of the other topaz plug ins. Thoughts???

05-16-2011, 05:17 AM	#7
ajaxmgr Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 54 Original Poster	Topaz adjust v Nik Thanks for all your suggestions. I played with Adjust and Vizenza (sp) and like the upoint tech in NIK. It was very easy to use and did some neat things with a sunset that I don't know if I could have done with adjust. So, I think I am leaning that way. I would like to use the HDR package in NIK but am using PSE 9 and it doesn't work with the 32 bit version of PSE 9, and I can't see buying another program just to run that. Photomatix looks like a work around for HDR. I tried a shareware program over the week end that had recieved some good coments, I think it was FDR Tools, just didn't like it. Didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. Thoughts on the HDR issue?

05-16-2011, 05:19 AM	#8
ajaxmgr Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 54 Original Poster	PP done with NIK Vizenza

05-17-2011, 05:45 AM	#10
ajaxmgr Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 54 Original Poster	Michaelina2 I started one of his webinars on Nik yesterday, really interesting. Im going try to finish it tonight

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05-12-2011, 05:20 AM	#2
loco Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Virginia Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 2,846	I'm no expert, but I have Elements 9. (I do not have Topaz Adjust and am not familiar with it.) If you shoot RAW, you can get Adobe Camera Raw for Elements which can do most of the things Lightroom can do in post-processing photos. Where Lightroom shines is in its organizing and cataloguing abilities. If you need that, Lightroom is an excellent addition. I pretty much use Lightroom for everything, except resizing photos which I still do in Elements. I do prefer LR's post-processing over Camera Raw.

05-12-2011, 07:17 AM	#3
reeftool Pentaxian Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Upstate New York Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 9,553	I've been using Elements for 3 years, starting with v.6 and last fall upgraded to Elements 9 when I upgraded my computer. I did the 30 day trial of Lightroom last winter and was kind of neutral on it. It was nice but I really couldn't see that much of an advantage to justify the $299 price for my uses. Adobe recently has had a couple of offerings of Lightroom to registered Elements users for $99 and I jumped on the most recent. (It's still in effect BTW, It's in the email offerings I got yesterday) After a couple of weeks of doing a lot of RAW shooting, I'm starting to appreciate the purchase. It works well with Elements for those shots that need a little more. I have used Picasa for my photo organizing for a long time but I have had problems with it since I upgraded to Win 7/64 bit. It looses my thumbnails so finding what I'm looking for is no longer an easy task which is another reason for the Lightroom switch. I haven't used any Topaz plugins so I can't comment but they are available for trial use. I use Noiseware for my high ISO cleanups.

05-12-2011, 12:41 PM	#4
mtngal Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Wherever I’m Parked Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,003	I've used Lightroom since the original beta and like it very much for keeping things organized. The Topaz Labs plug-ins work with both PS/PSE and Lightroom, they don't have different versions for each program. I'm not keen on Adjust, it doesn't quite suit me for some reason. On the other hand, I couldn't live without Denoise and Detail (which I use for sharpening rather than USM, I've found settings I like). And I use Remask on occasion, it does a nice job of creating selections. While I've used Clean and Simplify once in a great while, I find that they are sort-of specialized, fun to play around with occasionally but not something I couldn't do without. Nik's software is much more expensive, especially if you buy the versions that will work in Photoshop as well as Lightroom. I love Viveza and have the full version of it. Then I ended up buying the complete set for Lightroom only - couldn't justify spending the money for the set that also works with Photoshop. The main ones I use besides Viveza are HDR Efex and Silver Efex 2. I occasionally use Color Efex, but while it's fun to play with, it's not something I use very often. Their noise reduction plug-in works, but Denoise is just that much better. And I didn't particularly care for their sharpening program all that much, never found settings that I liked. Best thing to do is download the trial versions and play with them before buying. You might find one that you thought you would like but don't, and another one that you suddenly fall in love with and didn't expect to.

05-12-2011, 07:41 PM	#5
nosliwmit Pentaxian Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Pacific Northwest Photos: Gallery Posts: 913	Hi. I've got all three--Elements, Topaz and Lightroom--but only picked up the two latter programs recently, so not claiming any expertise. I use PS Elements (still on v.7) and just last week bought Lightroom (due to the $99 deal that I couldn't afford to not take advantage of). I also bought the Topaz suite a couple of weeks ago, and I've already been able to rescue a couple of really weak photos with it. I even got some value out of the remask plug-in the other day... I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to use both Picasa and Lightroom. Picasa has some features that I'm not yet willing to let go of--I like the screen saver and the ease of sharing photos with friends/family. I may try using Lightroom for general cataloging and then exporting (maybe at lower resolution) favorite photos to be used in Picasa for sharing and screen saver... The Topaz plug-ins are, for the most part, for pretty specialized manipulation of photos. Lightroom is really more for cataloging and maintenance of photo collections though it has powerful tools for "standard" post-processing needs. The suggestion of downloading the trials is a good one, though it takes a certain investment in time to learn and see the value of a complex program like Lightroom, whereas the Topaz plug-ins are less of a commitment... There are some good tutorials on the web for the Topaz plug-ins.

05-13-2011, 04:13 AM	#6
Michaelina2 Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: SE Michigan USA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,300	My pp toolbox contains PS7, PSE8, LR3.4, Topaz, and NIK for LR, plus QImage for print processing. PS7/PSE8 are used to resize images, only. LR3.4 is my workhorse. Topaz and NIK for LR fine tune things. Both NIK and Topaz are very elegant programs. I use both of them. My preference between the two is NIK for LR due to its ability to isolate an issue and address a small part in an image. Topaz seems more global than NIK. In order to choose between Topaz and NIK, you really need to attend their free webinars. The presentations are excellent. Moose Perterson's recent webinar for NIK was very helpful. It was an eye-popping experience to watch him move between the program tools with such confidence and ease. For me, it's time or money. Once you learn how things fit together, what might take an experienced user hours to do in PS can be done in less than two minutes with NIK for LR, or Topaz. ...my 2 cents...

05-16-2011, 04:36 PM	#9
Michaelina2 Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: SE Michigan USA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,300	If you are curious to see how Moose Peterson uses the NIK tool kit for PS (NIK for LR and Aperture work in an almost identical way), click the link, below: Nik Webinar Posted : Moose Peterson's Website Even though he shoots Nikon and I use a K-5 with NIK for LR, I found many things in common and the webinar to very useful. Enjoy...

05-17-2011, 05:48 AM	#11
ajaxmgr Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 54 Original Poster	Talked to the customer svc rep at Nik yesterday, she told me the HDR module was stand alone.

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