Nikon Capture 'v' Photoshop Elements 4

dubadubdub

I recently got a Nikon D50 which came with a 30 day trial of Nikon Capture. Before I buy the full version I was wondering if anyone has a view on whether I would be better getting Photoshop Elements 4.

I'm a newbie and probably won't be getting into any heavy processing. Just looking to extract the best out of the image.

Thanks in advance.

Dimy

You can never go wrong with Photoshop Elements, it's a very powerful and easy to use image editing software package.

davmigil

I guess you are talking about Capture NX?

Interested in this myself. Haven't tried the 30 day trial, as I am too lazy to try get to grips with it in 30 days!!

I am currently using Photoshop Elements 3.0 with RAW plug-in downloaded from adobe (lets you change white balance, sharpening and more besides) and find it pretty good.

I _think_ (please correct my illusions!) Capture NX is along the lines of Adobe Lightroom, in that you use it to get the best exposure from your RAW files. PS Elements concentrates more on editing stuff like cloning, removing unwanted objects etc. (with exposure correction tools as well, but not emphasis on). The control points system in NX is meant to be very easy to use and means you can do in one step what takes a lot more work in Photoshop.

I find PS Elements great for cataloging pictures also.

I guess you will probably find you could do with having both If I had to pick one I would go with Elements and download the beta of Lightroom, which you can use for longer than a month (at the moment anyway).

Only learning this stuff myself so will be following this thread with interest. Anybody using Capture NX?

Zillah

Is Photoshop Elements like Photoshop-lite or something?

davmigil

Yip, pretty much Photoshop on a diet. A good few bits left out, a few new bits brought in, with a few ease of use wizards for good measure. Not as bad as sounds and a fraction of the price of its more portly brother. By the way, to original poster, version 5.0 is the current edition, so beware of anybody trying to off load old stock of 4.0. I think 5.0 adds levels as a feature.

Borderfox

Photoshop Elements 5.0 is very user friendly.

Calina

Agreed. I'm very, very impressed with PSE 5.0.