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krscraps

krscraps

I'm a nerd.
Joined
May 6, 2013
Messages
1,349
My laptop is getting ready to bite the dust (I can feel it). I currently have Photoshop Elements 12 (which I know kinda sucks) and was wondering if anyone uses Creative Cloud and how they like it.

I can do $9.99/month if it's truly worth it.

Any opinions would be great.

Thanks!

Edited: I do have RadLab for Photoshop, so I wasn't sure if lightroom would be worth the extra...
 
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I have the Photographer option (Photoshop and Lightroom) and love it, although I can't compare to PSE. I like making my own actions, styles, paths, etc. and I loooooooooooooooooooooooove Lightroom!
 
I was happily using PSE when CC came to be and since I prefer processing my photos in Lightroom and already owned it, I didn't see any reason to upgrade to full Photoshop. PSE wasn't limiting me.

I don't remember why I decided to try it out last spring (it might have had something to do with someone suggesting they might be moving Lightroom exclusively to the cloud). I did the one month trial and I loved it. It was a little difficult to learn some new ways to do things, but right away I was seeing how I could do more. One of the things I use the most is creating my own actions, mainly for shadowing. Other things I like include how it shows me the inch measurements of the photo as I'm re-sizing it, effects and text are much more customizable, and it's easier to move photos and elements onto my scrapbook page than it was in PSE (though I was briefly lost not having the bin). As a photographer, I know I have more options with PS that I can't do in Lightroom, too, though so far I've mostly only made scrapbook pages in PS.

If $10/month is no problem for your budget, it's definitely a great deal. CC means always having the latest version of the software and there's so much to potential with the program that I'm still just beginning to learn it after 6 months (though I haven't been diligently studying and actually dropped scrapbooking briefly last summer so got off to slow start with PS). That's not to say it's keeping me from scrapping though. Take a look at my gallery to see what I've done with my fledgling PS skills :) I haven't touched PSE since early last spring.

One thing I don't understand that maybe someone in this thread can explain is the "smart object" thing. I figured out that if I want to do something to a smart object layer I have to "rasterize" it so it's not a problem. But what is the purpose of it being a "smart object?" I notice that only happens when I drag an element or photo from my Finder to my layout, but not if I work on a photo in PS first and then drag it onto my layout.
 
michelepixels said:
One thing I don't understand that maybe someone in this thread can explain is the "smart object" thing. I figured out that if I want to do something to a smart object layer I have to "rasterize" it so it's not a problem. But what is the purpose of it being a "smart object?" I notice that only happens when I drag an element or photo from my Finder to my layout, but not if I work on a photo in PS first and then drag it onto my layout.
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Smart Objects are for non-destructive editing. It's like a protective wrapper that doesn't let you ruin your stuff. As a simple example, if you scale down a Smart Object, and half an hour later decide to scale it back up, no problem. You don't lose any resolution. If you have rasterized it, you can't do that.

I am sort of an evangelist for non-destructive editing, because I am the queen of changing my mind halfway through a LO and I don't want to start over. I never rasterize anything. Ever. EVER. I hid it from my menus. I don't even want to see that word. :giggle You absolutely CAN do (juuuust about) everything you need to do non-destructively (without rasterizing), but you have to do it differently than you're used to. You don't erase, you mask. You don't adjust things directly, you add an adjustment layer to them.

Of course, if you never change your mind and scale things back up, never open up your old LOs to see what you did, etc. etc. then there's nothing wrong with rasterizing until the cows come home! But Smart Objects make me a very, very happy person.
 
Also, if you really don't care about it and never want to use Smart Objects, you can change a setting so that things you drag from Finder are not automatically made into Smart Objects.
Untitled-1.jpg
 
@lorryfach So are you saying that once I've changed the size of something, if I change my mind later and want to change the size again, if I have rasterized it, it will be damaged and won't look as good as it originally looked? Is that the same regardless of whether you want to increase or decrease the size? Because I thought we could always decrease the size of on object with no problem. And I pretty much never want to increase the size of anything. In fact, I thought things land on the page as big as they can be and we can't increase their size anyway. See how I'm confused?

Thank you so much for the screen shot! I will wait to shut off smart objects until I understand them better, but I'm glad to learn I can!
 
michelepixels said:
@lorryfach So are you saying that once I've changed the size of something, if I change my mind later and want to change the size again, if I have rasterized it, it will be damaged and won't look as good as it originally looked? Is that the same regardless of whether you want to increase or decrease the size?
Click to expand...
My example was with scaling it down and then scaling it back up. I used that example because it is not the same if you want to scale it down and then scale it down more, and it is not the same as scaling it up larger than the original size. Say you're using a template with one big photo and one small one. You size one of your photos down for the small spot, but after a while, you think "actually, they'd look better swapped." That's what I'm talking about. If you sized down a rasterized photo, you won't be able to just swap them. A Smart Object you could.
 
Pse14 does the smart object thing too.
I love Lightroom. I don't know that i would compare radlab with lightroom. I did a trial of radlab. They will both allow you to edit a photo. Lightroom doses it non destructively. So, if you acres the photo through the folder, it will be the same out of the camera, but if you access or through lightroom, it'll be the edited version. I can't remember for sure if radlab is also non destructive.
However, that's the end of the comparison for me. Lightroom is also an organizer. You can tag photos, you csn label photos with colors, you can set up smart folders based on days, tags, even the color you made the photos. You can tag people and bring up all the photos with two specific people.

As far as CC versus Elements, I think it's a hard decision, because it's so based on you personally. I plan on doing the trial and deciding if I'd actually use the features I'd have access too. So far, shadows and more text manipulation is the only thing that I wish Elements had. Well, and spell check. :rolleyes: Those 3 aren't enough for me to upgrade at this time.
 
I absolutely love the photographer option.. Photoshop CC + Lightroom for $9.99 a month.. well worth it... have been doing this now for 2 1/2 years!
 
cfile said:
I absolutely love the photographer option.. Photoshop CC + Lightroom for $9.99 a month.. well worth it... have been doing this now for 2 1/2 years!
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This. I moved from PSE (11 I think) to CC and it was a learning curve but well worth it (the lack of bin was hard for me until I figured it it really was easier pulling from finder, hehe). Honestly, I don't use a fraction of what it can do... I should take a class or something, but I do enough to get by, LOL. What really made me decide on the CC was LR, though. I already had LR but it was an older version (3). I had to decide whether to upgrade LR and stick with PSE or move to the cloud. I just can't live w/o my LR. Seriously.

And yes, I have RadLab as well and do use it often, but in PS just before throwing a photo in a page. It's a time saver although there is not a whole lot of finesse involved :). That can be good and bad depending on time and your needs.

I haven't regretted CC for a moment. Well worth the $10 a month and although I really don't like the idea of "renting" a program, I've gotten over it.

Oh, and my take on the rasterize/smart object thing. I agree with Lorry about the advantages of smart objects but I rasterize all the time (mostly to erase parts) b/c it's just easier. I'm also a big "merger" and that drives a lot of folks crazy as well :giggle . However, I don't usually change things up much once I place an object (except papers, I change those all the time).
 
jenevang said:
I haven't regretted CC for a moment. Well worth the $10 a month and although I really don't like the idea of "renting" a program, I've gotten over it.

Oh, and my take on the rasterize/smart object thing. I agree with Lorry about the advantages of smart objects but I rasterize all the time (mostly to erase parts) b/c it's just easier. I'm also a big "merger" and that drives a lot of folks crazy as well :giggle . However, I don't usually change things up much once I place an object (except papers, I change those all the time).
Click to expand...
I don't rastersize unless I need to do something with the layer... most of the time I mask to erase :)
 
krscraps said:
My laptop is getting ready to bite the dust (I can feel it). I currently have Photoshop Elements 12 (which I know kinda sucks) and was wondering if anyone uses Creative Cloud and how they like it.

I can do $9.99/month if it's truly worth it.

Any opinions would be great.

Thanks!

Edited: I do have RadLab for Photoshop, so I wasn't sure if lightroom would be worth the extra...
Click to expand...
I have been with Adobe CC for a few years now and I can't complain. Although I am a photographer, I do use LR and PS regularly, but I can see how benificial it would be to learn to use Lightroom. It's such an easy way to sort and edit alot of images at the same time. Right now is my downtime and I still am using LR to edit images for MOC. You have a few good presets, but you can find some free ones to add a little 'oomph' to your images.
For PS, it's so easy to use. Just drag & drop your brushes, styles, actions, etc!!! There's no going into a specific folder to add them. You can even upload your settings in case something happens to your puter or if you change puters.
:)
 
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