[dcstep]

Adobe confuses the hell out of me. I currently own Elements 7 and DxO's Optics Pro 5.3.2 along with Canon's Digital Photo Professional, which I hardly use, but it's the only software that'll convert Canon's smaller RAW files.

My workflow for 90% of my work is to use DxO's to batch convert from RAW to jpg. I use DxO because it's got lens and camera-specific adjustments for the errors in my Canon L-series lenses and 5D MkII body. It'll also do geometric correction, cropping and all sorts of saturation, wb, detail, etc. corrections all as part of the batch processing mode. I use a working file for the RAW downloads from the camera and automatically send them to project folders as converted to jpg.

I use Elements to clean up things like removing objects and more extreme effects when I really want to make large variations.

I'm thinking about experimenting more with panoramas and HDR, which had me considering an upgrade to PS. On the Adobe site I also see Lightroom and no clear explanation as to why there are two products so similar. I read that some people seem to have and use both. BTW, my DxO has an auto export to Lightroom as one of its features.

What will I gain if I buy Photoshop? I'm thinking that maybe I should get Lightroom and start using the DxO's export feature to fine tune my images a little more and continue to use Elements when I need to do a little more extreme work.

One kicker, I'm considering attending a landscape photography workshop in Santa Fe, but they want you to use Lightroom and Photoshop. It's all seeming very redundant to me and I don't understand why PS costs so darn much yet it is not as easy to use in a workflow than Lightroom. BTW, if you buy PS, then they give you a discount on Lightroom. (Since, I've got Elements I qualify for a small discount on PS). Price isn't a huge issue, but if I buy PS I want to gain something meaningful for the extra money.

Thanks for any advice.

Dave