I have a choice to make that others might be also faced with. I've been shooting birds and wildlife for 2.5 years with a Rebel XT and just upgraded glass and body(50D).
I've been using an old version of an out of production RAW converter. No Photoshop, just this converter that tweaks contrast, saturation, sharpness, exposure, etc.
Neither this product or my Picasa can open the new 20 mb 50D RAW files. So I am forced to use the included Canon DPP to convert.
So I need advice on choosing a cataloging, workflow, RAW converting tool. Here's my style and M/O:
I usually take 200 shots in an outing, but only convert the best 2-5 shots for sharing. (accepting volunteers to come over and delete files)
I realized recently that my official personal policy on PP/editting is that I'll do ANYTHING I can to improve my shots in PP as long as I am applying it to the whole photo. I don't feel right ethically about selective editting, ie cloning, pixel peeping, whatever.
My platform: "I'm a PC".
So I need to choose between Lightroom, Elements, CS3 or any other options you might offer.
Can you offer advice on what might fit my needs without over-buying?
I work similarly to what you describe. You probably won't find a RAW converter that gives better quality than DPP. People love to hate it, but it makes great files, for free. Very rarely, I'll pull a converted TIFF into Photoshop (an older version that I already had) for exposure blending or some localized color or tones, and especially slight rotation that DPP oddly doesn't have, but I could probably find a smaller/cheaper program to do that in. There are plenty of free/cheap cataloguing tools to use also. If you want to spend, pros are using Lightroom for workflow for a reason. The people who don't like it are the ones who like to do the incredibly detailed selective editing you can only do in PS. It might just be the one tool you need, if you like the RAW quality.
Normally I would just say LR, but since you don't have any additional real editor except DPP, Elements may be the way to go if you do not want to put much money into it. You will still find CS3 around to buy, but not for much longer since CS4 is out. CS4 is nice but will cost you dearly since you are not upgrading.
If you had the additional editor, LR all the way IMO.
CS3/CS4 is overkill for you ... you would have to put more $ into training than you plan to spend on the software. Not to mention time and effort. Elements seems like your best bet. But, you can demo both Elements and LR and decide for yourself. Both of the manuals are available online ... you might scan the manuals to see what each has to offer.
