Organizer with "Smarts" - Elements 18 vs Lightroom Classic

Report · Jun 16, 2018

Hi,

For years I've been hanging on to picasa as a photo organizer, simply because it worked and I had invested a lot of time with the facial recognition to tag a lot of people. It's (past) time to move on...

I'm now looking to switch to something modern (and supported). I've researched both Adobe Photoshop Elements and Lightroom Classic. Both seem to provide photo management and organization, but tackle it slightly differently. I want something local, I do not want a cloud based service for now.

I like some of the features I see in Photoshop Elements, particularly the smart tag that will use machine learning to look for certain scenes, people, places, or things. Some questions I have

1) How "smart" is the smart tagging feature in Elements? Is it able to learn anything, or are they limited, pre-canned kind of tags like "beach" and "dog"?

2) Both LR Classic and elements seem to do facial recognition. Is one particular better than the other? It appears to me that Elements does the smart tagging for things beyond faces, but that LR Classic just does face recognition. Is that correct?

3) How different is the experience in both for using as a photo organizer? I don't care much about editing, I'm just looking for something that can take 100k+ pictures, and help me organize by date, location, people, places, and potentially "things".

4) I'd prefer something that doesn't manipulate the original image. Not sure if either of these applications do that, or how they handle that.

Thanks in advance for your advice and help in selecting the right product. Opinions are welcome!

Report · Jun 17, 2018

My advice would be to also ask in the Lightroom CC forum.

You need to find users with enough knowledged and experience in both softwares and interested in smart features / visual media analysis. I don't think you'll find many of them, but of course, you may find many users with the same expectations as yours in both camps. Their experience should be helpful.

Personnally, I don't care much about those 'smart' features, so I can't be of much help. What I can say in favour of Elements, is that you can try it for 30 days for free. That leaves enough time to test and discuss the matter here with other users.

Report · Jun 17, 2018

It is pretty good but not perfect. Search will take into account your own keywords as well as the machine learning tags.
Yes that is correct, unless you consider LRCC with machine learning tags in the cloud.
Both PSE & LR Classic use a similar SQL database. LR Classic is probably faster with more comprehensive options.
LR Classic is totally non-destructive. Even if you edit photos it is possible to revert to your original at any time. PSE requires you to save an edited version e.g. for jpeg, tiff or PNG files although raw files are handled non-destructively.

Report · Jun 17, 2018

It is a good idea to install the software and use it as a free trial for 30 days as suggested by Michel. LR Classic also offers a free trial, before subscription, but only for 7 days. However you can import a PSE Organizer catalog directly into LR Classic.