I don't have the funds to get Photoshop but want something to handle my editing. What are the pros and cons of either? I see that alot of you use LR and just wondered. A photog friend that uses PS suggested I learned all that Elements offered, then upgraded to PS. I was fine with that until I began reading OPS. Many on here us LR mostly and PS sometimes. What is your opinion?

Elements is a consumer product that is the skim-milk version of photoshop. Lightroom allows you to do some spot editing, but is much better at handling a high volume of images. Hope that helps. Check for photoshop discounts. Some folks buy an older version on Ebay and then upgrade at a cheaper price.

Yup, Shane pretty much covered it. I use LR when I need to sort and edit hundreds or thousands of images (took 2400 at yesterday's wedding). I use CS2 on a few images (I tag the ones red in LR that need some PS love).

I second the idea of getting an old version and upgrading, I started with a german OEM version of Photoshop 6 and bought the CS2 upgrade (you can get into a full license of Photoshop CS2 that way for around $250, I got the whole CS2 suite for around $500). That's when I started doing pro work for pay. Up till then I just 'borrowed' Photoshop CS....

~Bill

Lightroom will allow you to do basic editing. Sorting and selecting images, color and exposture correcting, and cropping. For any major PS work, like cloning, removing items out of the image, softening.... on and on and on..... you need PS. If you have to get one or the other, get elements. You can do all of it in Elements, but it doesn't handle and sort large amounts of images well. You can do one at a time in Elements. I vote for CS3 if at all possible. I think Lightroom is more of a companion to PS.

Why not get Lightroom and Elements? You can toggle between the 2 easily.

agreed. Lightroom and elements are completely different programs, and certainly have their place working independently or together.

I have DPP and it will handle all sorts of functions like sorting, organizing, etc. So, maybe I should shoot for elements.