Capture NX vs Photoshops (CS3/4 + Lightroom)

[MasonAR]

Hi everybody - second go on the forum here, so please forgive for any mistakes. Need some advice please from you folks out there. Some background 1st.
Have been using Picture Project for a number of years now with great success as simple to use, but very much aware that Nikon don't support any more, & Capture is the replacement. Have installed Capture NX (came with purchase of D300) but still trying to get used to it (bit scary to start off with !)
Have had suggestions from others to start using the Adobe Photoshop family but the trouble is I am confused whether to purchase P/S CS3, CS4, CS4 extended, Lightroom or Elements ? I can't seem to find a simple explanation (without product sales hype) of the differences between them all. I'm not sure whether to persist with Capture.
The Adobe website offers discount if you purchase CS3 or 4 & also Lightroom which adds up to hefty $ so before I proceed I would really like some guidance please from anyone who's "in the know".
Looking forward & appreciate any responces.
Cheers
Andrew

[NeoTiger]

The various versions of Photoshop are great for editing single photos, but for processing of large batches of photos, Lightroom is great.

Lightroom can be used to do pretty much 90% of the photo editing on most photos, for things such as colour or exposure correction, cropping, simple sharpening or noise reduction, etc. It's also great for organising your photos with keywords and filters.

You may find that Lightroom or Photoshop may process your RAW photos a little differently from Capture NX though.

[ATJ]

I used CaptureNX for the first 2 months with my D300 and had been using it with my D70 for 3-4 months before that. I loved the raw processing capabilities but found I still needed other software (and I used PSP 9) to finalise images for the web: cropping, resizing, adding watermarks, etc. CaptureNX also wasn't great for cataloging or keywording - you can add keywords and other metadata but I found it cumbersome.

In February last year I saw a demo of Lightroom and realised the great possibilities. It is great for cataloging, keywording and the automation for exporting images is fantastic. The only problem I had was I didn't like the results from the raw conversion - they were quite different to CaptureNX.

Then, Lightroom 2 was released which included colour profiles. I initially had problems getting them to work the way I wanted but in October last year I discovered what I was doing wrong and I was able to get my D300 images to look identical, by default, in Lightroom as they did in CaptureNX. This was the last hurdle and now I am a very happy Lightroom user. I can do everything I need to do for more than 99% of my photos with Lightroom alone. Every now and then I find an image that needs special attention and I fire it up in PSP 9.

See: Lightroom and Profiles - I see the light

My advice would be to download a trial of Lightroom 2.3 and give it a go. You will know within the trial period of 30 days if it is right for you.

[MatthewRoberts]

I just installed Photoshop Elements 7 and it looks very impressive! I does basic cataloging and great editing and is best value imo.

[Potoroo]

My advice would be to download a trial of Lightroom 2.3 and give it a go. You will know within the trial period of 30 days if it is right for you.

Lightroom's interface makes my head hurt. Fortunately, I'll be picking up the student's edition of CS4 Production Premium shortly, which includes PS CS4 Extended and Adobe Bridge CS4.