Upgrade to CS3? Opinions Wanted

I am currently using Lightroom and CS2 for my digital developing
chores. I shoot 95% in JPEG (currently shooting with an Olympus E510 -
LOVE IT - and a Canon G7) and do 95% of my adjustments in LR.
A close friend recently got CS3 (he was using Elements prior) and he
loves it.
From a photographers point of view, considering that I do most of my
adjustments currently in LR, is the upgrade worth it? I have read some
of the features and some sound very interesting. (Even played with the
trial for a few days.)
From what I have read elsewhere, many feel that if you are already
using LR for most adjustments, the upgrade is not worth the cost of
admisson.
Opinions?
Thanks, Steve

Steven Wandy wrote:
I am currently using Lightroom and CS2 for my digital developing
chores. I shoot 95% in JPEG (currently shooting with an Olympus E510 -
LOVE IT - and a Canon G7) and do 95% of my adjustments in LR.
A close friend recently got CS3 (he was using Elements prior) and he
loves it.

If you're shooting JPG 95% of the time then you're throwing away a lot
of dynamic range and much of Elements and most of CS2/CS3. Shoot RAW
and get everything out of your camera that it caught. Further, when you
do screw up an exposure by a stop or 2, there is not much you can do
with a JPG. With RAW, almost all underexposures can be salvaged and
many overexposures can be salvaged. For action shots that's the
difference between, "you shoulda seen" and "wanna see?".

As I don't use lightroom I can't comment on that, but CS3 has been a
major improvement for me (from Elements 3.0) for film scan editing. I
believe the main advantage of Lightroom is for managing projects and
applying the same process to many images (and again, RAW would get you
more). CS2/3 has more to offer in terms of image editing but less in
terms of managing projects. (I may be off the mark on that).

If you have CS2 but don't take full advantage of RAW, then I don't think
you will get much more out of CS3.

Cheers,
Alan


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I second Mr. Brown.
The power of your software far exceeds the capability of your cameras.
If you understand how to use Lightroom/PS and general photography then put
the money that a CS3 upgrade would cost to a dSLR and shoot in raw.

On Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:42:26 -0400, Steven Wandy
wrote:

I am currently using Lightroom and CS2 for my digital developing
chores. I shoot 95% in JPEG (currently shooting with an Olympus E510 -
LOVE IT - and a Canon G7) and do 95% of my adjustments in LR.
A close friend recently got CS3 (he was using Elements prior) and he
loves it.
From a photographers point of view, considering that I do most of my
adjustments currently in LR, is the upgrade worth it? I have read some
of the features and some sound very interesting. (Even played with the
trial for a few days.)
From what I have read elsewhere, many feel that if you are already
using LR for most adjustments, the upgrade is not worth the cost of
admisson.
Opinions?
Thanks, Steve


From everything I've seen and heard CS3 is a nice product, and
upgrading won't be a mistake. But to be perfectly honest, I could roll
back to 4.0 (or whatever was the first version to offer Actions) and
function just fine. There are things I would immediatly miss, but most
of that I do can be done in 4.0.

So it comes down to which is worth more to you - your $200, or the new
features. I considered upgrading. The only features that interest me
are Smart Filters and the improved Black/White conversions, and so far
that isn't worth $200 to me.

My next big upgrade jump will be to the one of the CS Design packages.
The driving force there will be moving from Pagemaker to InDesign. (I
have Pagemaker, CS2, Acrobat 7 and CorelDraw - I'd upgrade to Design
Standard in a heartbeat if what I had qualified for the $399 upgrade.)


I strongly urge you to start shooting RAW, if only to take full
advantage of what Photoshop and your cameras have to offer. Well, make
that camera ... the G7 doesn't offer it. And the ijits at Canon
responsible for THAT decision should be stuffed with nails and rolled
down a hill.


TR

On Thu, 9 Aug 2007 15:28:13 -0700, "babaloo"
wrote:

I second Mr. Brown.
The power of your software far exceeds the capability of your cameras.
HUH??? I assume you are refering to the Canon G7 - a wonderful P&S
camera that just does not have RAW capabilities.
The Oly E510 IS a 10MP DSLR.