Best program?

[nsrush83]

What program do you recommend for editing photos and scrapbooking? I have Corel PSP but I know alot of photo editing scripts only work in Adobe, which I know nothing about..Are elements and CS the same? will scripts work in both if they are not the same?

HELP!:confused:

[lorryfach]

They are not the same. Photoshop Elements is aimed at regular consumers and Creative Suite/Creative Cloud are aimed at professionals. Some actions will work in both, and many have to be tailored to one or the other. I'm not familiar with using other kinds of scripts with Elements.

IMO there is no one "best" program. The best one is the one that works for you, you know? Some people use GIMP because it's free, and if price is the most important thing, then that's the best. Photoshop probably has more bells and whistles than any other program (including being able to use fancy actions and scripts), so if capability is most important, that's the best. But Elements is more user-friendly, and there are other programs like Serif CraftArtist that are made especially for scrapbooking and a lot of people swear by that.

Personally, I edit my photos in Lightroom and then scrap them in Photoshop.

[nikkiARNGwife]

I've scrapped with PSP for nearly 9 years now. It does all I need for my layouts.

I do all my photo editing in lightroom.

[JuliaM]

I use PSP for everything - scrapping and editing my photos. I have purchased some plugins for it from Topaz Labs to help with the editing process. I've tried using PSE in the past and hated it.

[nsrush83]

Thanks everyone! I will look into lightroom! I have had PSP for years but I couldnt find a place to buy scripts for photo editing!

[Beebo]

I use PSP9 and PSPX. It does everything I need done for my photos and scrapbook pages.

[lorryfach]

I'm not a professional, but I love my PS creative suit 5.

I realize now I did a poor job explaining that difference. To clarify what I meant, PSE and PS are designed to do photo editing, not scrapbooking. Within that realm, PS is aimed at pros and PSE is not. As scrappers, our needs are different and it's mostly a matter of preference which (if either) is best for us.

And to further clarfy, the kind of photo editing done in PS is different than what is done in Lightroom. Lightroom doesn't have layers, so you can't deal with multiple photos, overlays, and such. But single-photo edits like color adjustments, straightening, sharpening, etc. are crazy powerful and easy. Plus it also organizes your photos (and/or scrap stash, if you want to set it up that way) with keywording, labeling, smart collections, ratings, etc. PS can do single-photo edits too, but LR is slicker.

[lovely1m]

I use PSP for all my scrapping needs. I use PSE for using actions I like when editing, when I edit on my own, I use PSP.

[nsrush83]

So for photo editing alone what would be best?

[lorryfach]

I *looooove* Lightroom. I've been thinking of making a LO about how much I love it. I might need Shawna's new Smitten kit for it. lol

[luckyme]

So for photo editing alone what would be best?

It's a matter of personal preference, but I like Lightroom for photo editing. About 95% of my edits are Lightroom only. It does everything I need for exposure, tone, contrast, sharpening, etc. I like how I can edit one image in a series and then "copy and paste" the same settings onto all the other similar images -- it really speeds up editing a lot of photos. The only time I pull an image into Photoshop for editing is if I need to do some complicated extraction (like maybe removing a traffic sign from the background of the image).