Do I really need more than Elements 4?

That Todd Guy

That Todd Guy

Active member
Hey,

I've been upgrading and taking care of my FCP applications,
but I am still only using Photoshop elements 4.0.

I don't use too many photos or graphics in my projects,
but do you think it would be worth my time (and money)
to upgrade at least a little?
If so,
Is it worth it to go all the way up to Photoshop CS4? ($399 upgrade, I think)

Thanks for your thoughts,

Todd
 
If you don't shoot any still photography, not sure if it is worth it. You may want to consider the time and effort it will take to really learn Photoshop well if you want to use all $400 worth. Adobe's Creative Suite is very powerful, but only if you know how to use it thoroughly.

That said, I don't really know what Elements offers, as I have never used it. I use Photoshop semi-regularly to create lower thirds, full screen graphics, and DVD menu graphics - but you might be able to do all of that with Elements. I only get into really heavy Photoshop work when I am editing my still photos, and those are rarely integrated into FCP projects.
 
I use Elements 3 one one mac and Photoshop 7 on another. I hardly ever notice the difference in what they do for my purposes. Different layout for some things, and fewer tools in elements, but not ones I use often (if it all).
 
I believe Elements 6 has 90% of the useful PS functions.

My question is which Mac are you on. If it's intel, move to PE 6.
 
Hey

Thanx for all the quick and helpful responses.
My G5 isn't intel based & my Macbook-Pro is.

What difference does it make when using Photoshop?

Also,
one other thing to throw into the mix of my questioning...
I will be starting to offer basic websites to some of my customers.

If I am getting involved in that,
do you still think Photoshop elements 6 would be enough of an upgrade?

Todd
 
Unless the websites are for showcasing photography, probably fine. If you are doing design work, you may want to consider getting the CS4 Design package. My flow between Bridge, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and InDesign is so seamless, I can't imagine working any other way now. But it ain't cheap, unfortunately.
 
I wasn't planning on becoming a website designer,
but I have been trying to get some of the local businesses around my small town
to use me for producing video spots that they could use on their websites.
But unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for me) most of the local businesses don't even have
a website yet. So I thought I should try to expand my business into helping get their websites together.
I have used Dreameaver MX in the past,
and I almost fell over when I saw how much it would be to upgrade to the whole CS4 Design Package.

If designing websites is going to be something that I am adding to my business,
do you think it would be worthwhile to upgrade to the whole thing?
Two things really scare me about that...
One) The price, of course!
Two) The learning curve

I'd appreciate any advise you could give me from your experience.
Thanx,

Todd
 
So, you could get Photoshop and Dreamweaver separately for $999 and $399 respectively, or get the Premium Web Suite for $1699. Either way, that's a bunch of money, so you need to figure out how much money you will realistically be able to bring in.

What are your goals? Do you want to make a living using this software? Or just make sure that it pays itself off? If you want to make a living doing web design work, that Premium Web Suite will probably pay dividends in the long run, but if you are just doing simple web pages with simple graphics, maybe you should just get Dreamweaver and continue to use PS Elements. I don't know that you will find a suitable substitute for Dreamweaver (like PS Elements is for PS Extended) that will still allow you to be very creative in your web design, but I could be wrong. There is definitely a steep learning curve with both products though. Lynda.com will be your new best friend for $25 a month.

How much of this work are you going to really be doing? I think that is the question. I use CS3 every day at my day job, so having an integrated workflow with great professional tools is important to me to make my life easier. But for years as I was doing odd jobs as a designer, it really didn't bother me much to only have out-of-date versions of PS and DW.
 
Thanx for the candid advise,
sorry to make you into my own personal guidance counselor.


I don't know how much of this work I will be planning on doing.
A couple of years ago, I sold the family heating business,
and decided that I wanted to get back into video production.
(something that I was much more passionate about)

I am realizing rather quickly how closely tied videography is to the web,
and web designing in general. I am very creative, but I don't know too much about designing websites. I think I could really increase my income if I was able to
add website designing to the services that I could offer.

Do you think Dreaweaver will continue to be one of the top designing programs?
Some of my friends have said to just use a basic CMS application,
and save the time and money.
I hate to waste my time trying to learn how to get around using a free CMS,
when I could be learning to use the premium web suite.


Sorry to babble on about my whole life here,
but I see this as a great money making opportunity in my area,
and I don't want to miss out.

But I also don't want to waste a lot of my time and money.

Thanks again for listening,
I really appreciate hearing your experienced opinion,

Todd
 
That Todd Guy said:
I see this as a great money making opportunity in my area,
and I don't want to miss out.

But I also don't want to waste a lot of my time and money.
Click to expand...

If I were you, I would spend $25 now on a month long subscription to Lynda.com and look at their tutorials for the CS4 applications that you are considering. This will give you a very good idea of what kinds of things you will be able to do, and you can compare this to what you can do with a free CMS and Photoshop Elements.

If you want to spend the money and then the time to learn these applications, you can become a pretty decent technical designer quickly. But when it comes to actually making money, you need to have more than just the tech skills - you need to be able to sell yourself and you need to be creative (nobody will pay a premium for cookie cutter design). And that, my friend, is not on lynda.com, or any other website that I have ever seen.

There's no reason to dive in headfirst if you are unsure (unless that's the way you like to roll). You can do everything you want to do by writing HTML code in notepad and creating and editing images with the software that you already have, but it will be harder and take longer than if you have the professional tools. Maybe you should take on one of these jobs, see how you do with what you've got. It will probably shed a lot of light on how you should spend your money and your time.
 
Thank you so much for all of the advise. I really appreciate you taking the time
to help me out.
I never really thought about going through the tutorials at Lynda.com,
before I even owned the software. I think that is a great idea.
I have been using month to month on Lynda.com on and off for the past
couple of years. I think it is a wonderful site to learn about almost any computer software application.

I don't have to much fear about my ability to create & sell the websites to my customers.
I ran a small heating company in this town for the past 10 years, and i got to know most of the business owners pretty well.
They really trust me,
so I don't think convincing them that I can help them out will be too difficult.

My biggest fear in all of this was that I would spend a lot of money & time learning a website designing application,
and then find out that the freeware applications out there are just as good. My friends kept on telling me to just go to any web hosting
site that had a lot of templates, and use one of those. Why take the time to learn all that stuff
when they make it so easy that even a ten year old can put a site together.

I felt that if I was going to offer this as a service to customers,
that I would want to be able to create exactly what they wanted,
and most of the time the cheaper (or free) applications don't give you complete control.

Anyways I babble again,
Thank you for the help,

Hey one more quick question..
do you know if there is anyplace to pick up an older version of Dreamweaver?
cause anything above MX would be an improvement for me,
and I am sure it would be a whole lot cheaper.
Oh well just a thought!
Thanx again,

Todd
 
That Todd Guy said:
My friends kept on telling me to just go to any web hosting
site that had a lot of templates, and use one of those. Why take the time to learn all that stuff
when they make it so easy that even a ten year old can put a site together.

I felt that if I was going to offer this as a service to customers,
that I would want to be able to create exactly what they wanted,
and most of the time the cheaper (or free) applications don't give you complete control.
Click to expand...

Exactly - who wants a site that looks like a ten year old could put it together? If you are going to be a professional, use a professional tool.

Hey one more quick question..
do you know if there is anyplace to pick up an older version of Dreamweaver?
cause anything above MX would be an improvement for me,
and I am sure it would be a whole lot cheaper.
Click to expand...
Not sure about this, but sometimes people are selling their used copies of CS3 in the marketplace on this site for a generous discount. Good luck.
 
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