Adobe photoshop elements vs lightroom vs cs6
CS6 allows much greater manipulation through the use of layers which helps in retouching and modifying original photographs. I have used CS6 to replace ugly backgrounds but I do very little of that. I use CS6 when I do large prints and when I want to do retouching on a face however LR 5 now has greatly improved spot removal capability so I can use it rather that PS on many pictures. I use LR for more than 95 per cent of my processing as I can rapidly make global changes like correcting white balance after a 300 shot swim meet under sickly looking yellow lights where there is mixed white balance against natural window light.
I shoot a lot of sports and a wide variety of other subjects. I don't need everything that CS6 has to offer and would likely never use most of it. I'm looking into getting Adobe Elements 11 to compliment Lightroom, if I need to do anything that I can't do in LR. As others have mentioned, Lightroom 5 just came out, so you get the newest and best technology for a very reasonable price compared to Photoshop CS6. I would caution against Apple's Aperture program only because it hasn't had an update in years, and it's difficult to say if and when there will be an update for Aperture. Lightroom was essentially designed by Adobe for photographers, whereas Photoshop was geared a bit more for graphic designers is my understanding. The image editing is quite powerful, and does everything I need it to do. I have thousands of images, but LR makes it super easy to find any image I may be looking for with keywording. It's been great for organizing and keywording images. It's a bit of a learning curve initially, but not as steep as Photoshop from what I gather. I only started shooting less than two years ago, so I'm no pro, but I did a ton of research into what photo organizing and editing program I should purchase, and in the end I opted for Lightroom. To help you decide, you might want to check the Adobe web site for the basic "tutorials" in using Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom. To me there is a fairly steep learning curve to become competent at photoshop and I have all but abandoned it except for special occasions when I need layers and layer masks to do what I want. Photoshop uses a file browser (called Bridge) so you organize your photos on your hard drive and browse for the ones you want to edit. It is much less expensive than photoshop but a good value. There are a number of ways you can arrange to print photos, upload them to the web, do a slideshow, or even make a book. The edits are "non-destructive" so the original raw (or DNG) file stays the same. The catalogue points to the original image. Note that Lightroom does not have a file browser, per se, but makes a catalogue of the photos that you have on a hard drive. It has sophisticated editing tools which may be all you need for what you say you want to do. It has a catalogue with which you can organize your photos. Of the two, I would recommend Lightroom 5 which has just been released.