Looking to buy, need pro advice

[JosShavaughn]

So I'm not a professional, just a student w/ a dream, but I just bought a new laptop, and now it's time to buy Photoshop. Since I'm a student I can get CS5 for $198.95, but I can also get Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Corel Painter 11 for $101 more. I've been reading and observing and apparently those last two are very important in the business. So should I swing for the bigger package and pay a little extra, even though I don't know how to use them, or just stick to the basics? I absolutely have to have Photoshop so I can do assignments from class.

I don't think I'll learn Lightroom at school, but I've heard people at school mention it's a little bit more user friendly, and a great tool to have.

[Tom]

I would definitely pay $300 for Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3. I do nearly all my edits in LR.

[Kalrog]

I don't know what Corel Painter is for...

But I would very much suggest LightRoom and PhotoShop. In fact, if you want to just get one of them right now, I would get LightRoom for $80 (I think that is the student price). Then later you can get CS5 for $200. That saves you the $20 for Corel and gets you what you will probably use more often first.

Of course, if you can swing (cost wise) getting them all now, there is no reason not to.

[dmarty78]

LR and Photoshop a must! Don't think you'll need Painter.

[JosShavaughn]

Well, my mom, who controls all of my money (it's by my own choice due to my bi polar) and she feels like the photoshop only is the way we're going to start out. I still have 2 years to get Lightroom for only $89 while I'm a student.

Thank you for all of your advice though.

[Tom]

I'd probably do lightroom only before photoshop only, unless you specificially needed photoshop for something.

[JosShavaughn]

Yes, I HAVE to HAVE Photoshop for school. I have assignments througout the semester that they have the directions for based off photoshop, not lightroom. I'm pretty sure they don't even teach us lightroom at school. I've never seen it on our computers, and I'm only in Intermediate Photography right now, I've JUST started taking photography classes, so I'll need Photoshop pretty much until I graduate.

[stephges]

I would pay the extra money and also get Lightroom. It's pretty user friendly and easy to learn (at least for me it was). I can't believe how I ever got along without it! It makes processing images so much easier and less tedious than doing it through Bridge in Photoshop. If you pick up Lightroom, I also recommend picking up The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book by Martin Evening. His book (the Lightroom 2 version) has been a godsend for me when there was something I needed to figure out how to do but couldn't on my own) :-)

[Kalrog]

Originally Posted by Thomas Campbell

I'd probably do lightroom only before photoshop only, unless you specificially needed photoshop for something.

+1

I use Linux versions of these 2 programs... and I use the LightRoom one about 50 times more than the Photoshop one.

[L Stegall]

Add another vote for LightRoom. I use that much more than Photoshop. Much faster and easier to do minor edits in Lightroom. Adding that would be money well spent in my opinion. No opinion on the Corell program.

[danchez]

I took classes for both Adobe Bridge CS5 and LR3 and they are almost exactly the same. You can do almost everything with Adobe Bridge CS5 as you can with LR3, so if you learn to use Bridge, LR3 is very redundant and you probably wont need it.

[JosShavaughn]

Okay, i talked my mom into photoshop and lightroom.

[JosShavaughn]

Just placed my order for Photoshop CS 5, Lightroom 3, and Corel Painter 11. I went ahead and paid $10-11 extra and got Corel painter, I figure for that cheap, I don't mind figuring it out on my own. It could be useful. Hopefully I'll get verified today, and it'll be here in time that I will get it right after my laptop arrives. I paid $20 for 2-day shipping. $357.66 total.