Photocshop CS

[banyantree]

I am considering purchasing Photoshop CS to file and tag my photos taken with my recently purchased D300.
I am currently using ACDsee 6.0 which is OK however it is my office's version. I've heard great things about the tagging and file storage in Photoshop but i would like some further info from people who have used the software.

1) I dont currently shoot in RAW but I'm planning to start to have more control on the photos. Is it time consuming to convert RAw and Jpeg using Photoshop. I currently shoot fine and L Jpegs.
2) Is it easy to use the tagging in Photoshop CS?
3) Can i combine several images in the CS version?
4) Should i shoot RAW & jpeg on the D300 or just shoot RAW covnerting to jpeg only the images i require? What is the most efficient way to do this.
5) I currently display my photos on a large plasma which is why its shoot on Large and Fine.The images look stunning. I plan to use the large plasma as my main display to edit photos.

Appreciate any feedback on this software.

 

[Richter]

2. Not sure if the tagging you refer to is the keywords that you can use to search for some pictures. If so, I find it rather simple.

3. Do not know what you mean.

4. I only shoot in raw now. Besides the file size, I can't think of a reason to shoot in Jpeg. However, sad to say that my D70s only have compressed RAW. I will still shoot in uncompressed RAW if I have a choice. Reason being what you get is unprocessed and no losses. Details that are lost during compression to Jpeg can never be recovered.

I am using Photoshop CS 4 Extended. It comes with Bridge. You can open all your raw files with the Adobe Camera Raw(ACR) do some non-destructive editing to the raw files. You can even synchronise them such as white balance if you feel that the changes should be the same for the rest of the file. You can also remove the camera dust spots with the healing brush in the ACR and synchronise all the pictures. you can then save them as Jpeg if you want to. Kind of like batch conversion to Jpeg if you ask me.

Why not you go download a trial version and try it out yourself? I believe nothing beats you using it yourself. No one can tell you what is best for you but yourself.

Link to download Adobe Photoshop Trial