Photography 101: Choosing The Best Photoshop For Your Photo Editing Needs

Choosing the right photo editor especially from Adobe's range is confusing because they all process and edit digital photos. This is a closer look at where the different applications fit into the digital work flow of any photographer.

I used to have 3 versions of Photoshops on my computers. I use for managing and processing my photos as well as photos from different clients I have.

Currently, I am using Photoshop CC which I find very very useful but to further give you brief overview on the other versions of the Adobe Creative Studio, let start it with the Lightroom.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

_Source

For most, this is the one they turn to. Lightroom has powerful image management and cataloging capabilities. These are essential for finding digital photos as the photo library quickly grew beyond the thousands. The process starts when the memory card is plugged into the computer.

Lightroom copies the RAW images from the card onto the computer into a basic chronological folder structure. Lightroom can do more during this import process such as adding keywords for the RAW image and applying basic adjustments.

The keywords are a powerful part of Lightroom’s photo management capabilities. Even though all the photos are stored in folders according to year and month, using keywords to search enables the selection of photos from the entire collection based on the keywords.

For busy photographers Adobe Lightroom offers more facilities during the import operation. Photographers often have a number of routine adjustments and settings they apply to all the images. These will vary depending on camera, lenses and personal style. Lightroom can apply these adjustments as part of the import process and store more than one set of adjustments. Photographers choose which set of their basic adjustments as they import each new batch of photos.

Lightroom has a range of tools for adjusting exposure, colour, noise reduction and more as well as basic editing such cropping and rotating photos.

Finally, there are a number of export options from Lightroom where size, type and quality of the new image are specified. Saving standard export settings means photographers can apply them by choosing one option from a menu. I have a standard size, jpeg configuration and folder destination for a small copy to use for email.

_Source

Adobe Photoshop Elements

This is a cut down version of Creative Suite that lacks the ultimate power of its stablemate. It does offer image manipulation tools that are not in Lightroom, such as layers and selective editing.

Photoshop Elements loads quickly and is simpler to use than the full Creative Suite, mainly because it offers less options. Mostly the options are not needed, so I tend to use Elements instead of the full Creative Suite if I am on a hurry.

For an overview of the capabilities of the Photoshop Elements, see the video above.

Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite/Cloud

_Source

This is the heavy weight application with a vast array of powerful tools for doing magical things to photographs. The Creative Suite name is the clue to the purpose of this software mammoth. Creative Suite is for graphic artists and designers.

Photographs are just one part, and often just the starting point, of the process. Imagination is the only real limit to possibilities with Creative Suite. For a photojournalists and general professional photographers who want to the extra mile in their editing, then this tool is a great addition.

This is the main reason why I prefer this tool because of the many feature it has and I can always go further depending on my creativity limits.

---

P.S.

Starting this week, Cebuana Portraits Series will be posted on my dedicated #travel and #photography account, @herbertkikoy.

Thank you!

---

That's it for now guys and stay tuned tomorrow for another episode of our Photography 101. If you wish to check on our previous releases, see the list below.

• Photography 101: Photo Journaling With Your Smartphone
• Photography 101: Photography with a Focus
• Photography 101: Improve Your Landscape Photography
• Photography 101: Night Photography
• Photography 101: How to Take Better Photographs
• Photography 101: Traveling With a Camera
• Mobile Photography 101: 4 Essentials to Capture Perfect Portrait Shots
• Photography 101: Photography Ideas For Your Next Rockstar Shots
• Photography 101: Common Mistakes To Avoid
• Photography 101: High Dynamic Range (HDR)

Increasing the Visibility of Original and Engaging Content

_{Like @Curie? Support by voting Curie as Witness! https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Join us in Discord https://discord.gg/G6RPUMu}