JPEG vs RAW

The fundamental difference in us, Sam (and not that I care about our different opinions), is that you love working on files in photoshop. I prefer to do minor tweaking and call it good.

 

Let me throw one more question into the mix. People have told me that you can almost do as much with Photoshop Elements as you can with Photoshop; The difference being that Photoshop is geared more towards professional production work; Elements having a lot of the most used tools that would be applicable for the enthusiast level photographer.

I have never used Photoshop so I have no idea if this is an accurate assessment.

 

I think its quite a valid suggestion: Photoshop CS4 (and previous versions of Photoshop) is extremely versatile; it really isn't just for editing photos anymore. I use Photoshop CS3 for some photo editing, website designs, graphic designs, poster designs, etc.

But if you don't plan to be using these things, and just want to have control over layers and the different edits that Photoshop can do, Photoshop Elements is a cheap alternative!

 

You might also consider spending some time playing with the GIMP. Its a free alternative to photoshop. There are a plenty of tools, and might be good enough for the work you do.

 

Thanks Caleb, I'll check it out.

 

Thanks for all the good information folks.

 

just for the info with my fz28 raw images are recognized with photoshop elements 7, I have to open them with lightroom than they can be transferred.
raw is a little bit of a pain in the neck..................

 

I have heard from many that when push comes to shove a person simply can't tell the difference between a photo shot in RAW vs JPEG. Furthermore even an edited JPEG vs an edited RAW has virtually no difference that a human eye can detect. Therefore shooting in RAW and doing all that post production processing isn't really worth the time. Anybody agree or disagree with this?