Quick Advice please PSE vs CC/Lightroom

August 26th, 2016
I currently use PSE 11 and the Nik collection. Today I got a new camera (Nikon d750), went out and shot in RAW like I do, came home and found out that my PSE 11 is not compatible with the NEF format from the d750.

I'm faced with a choice of upgrading PSE to PSE 13 (PSE 14 is the current version but alas is not compatible with the Nik collection) OR should I switch to CC/Lightroom and lose the ability to use the Nik collection.

Let me mention that I'm very comfortable with PSE and the Nik Collection, and I use them daily. I have no experience at all with Lightroom/CC.

I'm so sad that right now I cannot even open my image from my new camera!

Thanks for input!

@tracys
August 26th, 2016
Hi Tracy,Why don,t you download View NX-i for downloading & storage & Capture NX-D which is designed specifically by Nikon for processing Raw photos.(They are Free on the Nikon site)
August 26th, 2016
I have CC and Lightroom and also have the Nik collection, so if you upgrade you won't loose it. You may have to download it again but it is free so that shouldn't be a problem. I found moving from PSE to CC was a breeze. Lightroom is not difficult either. There are loads of tutorials available on how to get to know both programs.
August 26th, 2016
@salza Thanks. Do you mind checking which version of CC you have? I think they just did an update and so now it won't work with the current CC. It did work on 2015.
August 26th, 2016
I have the latest version of CC and I used the Nik collection with it yesterday.
August 26th, 2016
""(PSE 14 is the current version but alas is not compatible with the Nik collection) ""

I am currently running PSE14 and the NIK collection works just fine ( http://365project.org/byrdlip/2016/2016-07-28 ). Though I am not an expert, or even a starting amateur with them

Another option is to get the Adobe converter that will take NEFs and convert to DNGs and will work as raws in PSE14. It does add another step in processing, if you don't want to upgrade to 14.

Another opinion on DNG format: http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshop/2015/12/dng-pros-cons-and-myths.html (I haven't read it all)
August 26th, 2016
@salza @byrdlip Thanks for the information! I ordered PSE13 on ebay yesterday, and I'm doing the free trial of CC/LR.

@salza where is the Nik collection? Is it in CC or LR? Will I have to download nik for CC/LR since I was using it for PSE.
August 26th, 2016
Are you sure you can't download a free update to the version of Adobe Camera Raw that came with PSE 11 so that it can convert your raw files from your new Nikon. I had to do exactly this so that I could keep using PSE 11 when I bought a new Sony last year. Didn't pay a penny.
August 26th, 2016
@jasperc The patch needed for my camera doesn't work for PSE 11. I download one anyhow and tried, but it didn't work. Thank you though.
August 26th, 2016
PSE 13 and keep Nik. I think Lightroom would be too big a paradigm shift for you. Almost everything in the Develop Module of LR you can do in PSE, and then a whole lot more because you have "layers" to do all sorts of stuff that LR can't even begin to think of. Except for 16 bit processing, but if you haven't missed that already, no big deal.
August 26th, 2016
Wow! Have a great time with the D750. It is an incredible camera.
August 26th, 2016
@frankhymus Good to hear, as I was (still am) seriously annoyed that I can't play with my new photos yet. I ordered PSE 13 on ebay because it's almost $100 on Amazon (!), and I have to wait for it in the old-fashioned mail now. Anyhow, I like the PSE/Nik combo I use a lot and got to worrying about if I am missing something I didn't know about in LR/CC. I doubt I'll be able to get much of a sense for it in 7 days (free trail), but I'll mess around with it a bit. I still cannot get Nik to interact with it though.

To post my pic today (from my new camera) I edited RAW in LR/CC then saved it as a JPEG and opened it in PSE11/Nik, I lost resolution I think, but it was ok.
August 26th, 2016
@frankhymus I'm so excited, and I got the 85mm/1.8 g to go with it too.
August 26th, 2016
@tracys Excellent, especially for portraits.
August 26th, 2016
@tracys Save it as a tiff or dng or psd. I'm not sure, but PSE should be able to deal with one of those formats?
August 26th, 2016
@tracys I really feel your pain - I had exactly the same issue with ACR not being able to be upgraded because I had such an old version of paintshop pro when I bought a shiney new camera. I went to upgrade the software & found the laptop operating system was too old to run the upgrade.... grrr...

I use CC with NIK - do you have the most recent version?
August 27th, 2016
I had to shift to LR when Apple abandoned Aperture. There's a bit to learn, but not too bad if you spend some time with it. I use LR and PS CC 15.5.0 and have no problem using the NIK suite. One of the really useful aspects of using CC is that all updates are immediately available and easily installed.
August 27th, 2016
I do that thing where you pay $10 a month for lightroo and PS. I bought premiere elements though because I don't do enough video editing to pay the monthly fee for the full version.
August 27th, 2016
Tracy I have just updated to the latest CC and initially the Nik collection wasn't there but I found the solution here - https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2170761 The Nik collection is now visible
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