Great! Got PS Elements 4, now can't do a thing!

Arrrrrgh! This digital stuff is killing me, I wanna go back to FILM!

Was going nuts with DPP, but learned nobody uses the darn thing, and the web is full of PSE help, so I bought and installed it today. Right back at the bottom of the learning curve! Watched the little movie that came with it showing how to crop the dog out of one photo and put it in another, how to lighten the shadows. . .now I can't even get to those areas.

I'm so tired of learning computer stuff. Will photography ever get fun again? I'm too old for all this compooooter crap. Ugh. Scotch. Bed. Try again tomorrow.

Just venting. Thanks for listening

Setting up a dark room is never easy But once its done, it can set you free!!

Have patience ... what exactly are you attempting to do? Scott Kelby has some excellent how to books.

John I am with you on that ..I just got cs2 and am going nuts .... gonna order kelbys book and see from there ..I like the dig cam ...just need to get the software down .... good luck

Bluedog, it's not that I'm attempting to do anything in particular, I was just frustrated last night at sliding back down the learning curve. I got to the point with DPP where I could get photos looking the way I wanted, and even apply a DryCreek Photo profile for my local Costco printer. Now I'm having trouble just getting photos into the editor, much less do anything with them.

I will get a Scott Kelby book, I'd already found him. And it will get better, I know that. I just wanted one program I could do everything in from RAW processing to printing with profiles and I figured PSE4 is it. I'll likely be happy again in a couple weeks.

It's just so darn discouraging going from film to digital. I have made some great images, to be sure, and I'm enjoying my camera again, but there's just so much STUFF you gotta know. It's like drinking from a fire hose sometimes. My guess is by the end of the first quarter in 2006, I'll be so good at it, I'll look back on this and laugh.

JPC

LOL ... I know you will. My work flow currently consist of RAW processing in Raw Shooter Premium saving as a TIFF then opening in PSE2 and doing any final editing before saving as a final JPEG.

I'm glad to see I am not alone at the bottom of the Photo Shop mountian.

Bluedog, why do you use RAW Shooter? Why not do everything in PSE4? I'm trying to avoid using other programs if I can. PSE4 will open CR2 files and save as tiffs or jpgs, too.

??

I must be the old-fashioned one here - I still almost always start processing in DPP, then convert to JPG for the final work in PSE-3. The reason I use DPP is that it has settings that match those on my camera, so I know that I'm starting with what I shot. I just wish it had some type of noise-reduction controls on it.

Does PSE-4 still have the photo album stuff built in, or can you install just the editing software portion? That's one thing I hate about PSE-3 - the indexing and tagging and all that slow the program down.

Tom, I'm not sure how to answer your question about indexing and taggin yet. PSE4 has ALL that stuff. I just did their basic install, so I don't know what you can leave in or out.

What do you mean DPP has settings that match your camera? If you are shooting in RAW, every processing program that can deal with the RAW image "starts with what you shot" unless I've really been wasting my time here and don't understand RAW. Supposedly, any program that can open a .CR2 file is starting with the same information, why would using DPP (or Raw Shooter for that matter) make any difference at all?

John

PSE and CS2 have steep learning curves, especially for those trying to do it without any books. Pick up one of Kelby's books, and you'll be surprised at how much easier it becomes.

John, I sympathize, but the opposite is true for me. Film was always way too much hassle to get it right. I've been waiting on digital to get there all my life
Keep at it, you'll get there. Just take one step at a time. Main things are to learn to crop and correct. You shouldn't have to worry much about profiles if you have your monitor adjusted properly. I've printed a half-dozen or so enlargements at Costco with no profiles applied and had no problems whatsoever.

KAC

'Till he answers, mine is 'cause I like it! And I suspect that I'll get a bit better quality if I make the changes before I convert , as opposed to making them after.
I've used the free RSE (RawShooter Essentials) since it came out & wouldn't be without it now. I usually only go into PS7 to crop, resize & do some final sharpening unless it's a complex shot.
For the simple shots, RSE saves the conversion info so I can delete the big tiff file & save a lot of hard drive space in the long run.
Only for complex shots with many layers will I save the tiff.
EDIT: Now you can crop in RSE-Pro, too.

I agree. I just copy the images from the card to a directory. Review them using windows picture and fax viewer because it's easy and fast (delete the bad ones right there) and edit (with Photoshop CS2) the ones that as worth working on.

(and copy and burn everything to dvd RW or dvd)

KAC

This definitely falls under the "different strokes" category. I actually like the Elements photo organizer - the tags and such are great tools for organizing and (later) retrieving images. I really like the way it allows you to "stack" similar images, and the automated "version set" style of stacking after you have edited an image. Any of these features can be ignored (turned off) if you don't wish to utilize them.