Rating: Summary: The perfect tool for digital photography and image editing Review: Photoshop Elements is the best choice for beginning, intermediate and some advanced use in photo-editing for home and in some cases for business. The program is a great solution for any home user working with digital images and printing to an inkjet (CRT or LED light process printers as well!). More advanced users, who may use Photoshop at work, can use Elements at home as a less expensive alternative and still have the Photoshop look and feel. You can't beat the price, or the Adobe reputation.The usual objection for most users is that Elements doesn't have some of the more powerful features in Photoshop, like Curves, channels, CMYK, vector editing and controls, but with one book (see The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2; hiddenelements.com) these functions and more can be added, giving Elements much of the power thought only to be in Photoshop!
Rating: Summary: Photoshop-class graphics package, bargain price Review: I wanted Photoshop 7.0 for my new Apple system, as I used it all the time on my Windows computer. But it was expensive. Then I found some money off coupons for Elements 2, and thought "why not? With super saver free postage, I can't lose". Well, it arrived today and I'm delighted. Photoshop Elements 2.0 seems to have ALL the key features I need for graphics work (the main features missing compared to Photoshop 7.0 are support for CYMK and vector graphics - neither of which are important for web or most photo work). Designing graphics for websites, playing with photographs, mocking up application user interfaces, creating images for iMovies and iDVD - Elements does it all. And under OSX, it looks simply gorgeous and runs plenty fast. Even if you aren't lucky enough to get any money off, this is a real bargain. Don't hesitate - see what all the Photoshop fuss is about and order it. This isn't some hacked-up, dumbed-down application for people new to computers. Nope, this is a powerful graphics package with some easy to use features for newbies, and enough serious stuff to keep even people who produce professional images happy. It even works with my graphics tablet. Sweet!
Rating: Summary: Ditto Review: Like many here have said - 90% of Photoshop at 10% of the price. And it's cross-platform out of the box. I use both Mac OS X and Win2000 daily and it works on both. The only occasional problem is the auto-update feature that connects to Adobe occasionally - it sometimes fails for no aparent reason and gives little explanation of why it failed.
Rating: Summary: Did you get a digital camera? You'll love this software Review: I have all sorts of software for image manipulation that came with digital cameras. But I plunked down good money for Photoshop Elements V.1.0 and now I tried V.2 and I really, really love it. The interface is relatively easy to use (with pulldown menus or tabs as you prefer.) The manipulation of layers is made easier by working with the layer tab and the preview feature is a real boon. There are artsy filters to add chalk, oil brush dabs, charcoal, and other brush effects to make a photo look like a painting. And I found it easier to use Photoshop Elements to start a web design and port it over to Dreamweaver than to use Macromedia Fireworks. I really like V.2 and with a rebate from the serial number of Version 1, it's not a bad deal. If you have other software included with your digital camera and you find them awkward, give this a try. It's good enough for all but the semi-pro and professional graphics designers and a real bargain.
Rating: Summary: Does the job for a lot less! Review: I had used a friend's Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and was contemplating the purchase of the newer 7.0 when I spotted an ad for this version for amateurs. At one sixth the price it was sure worth a try. All I can say is that I got more than my money's worth. This simpler version has everything the non professional would want and more. It is easy to install and uses less computer space than its big brother. Helps to easily import photos from cameras, CDs or scanners. It has all the simple fix-its you might need- such as auto enhancers, red eye reduction,ability to crop, straighten, focus, fade,blur, change the background, layer, create panaramas etc. Easily compresses photos and attaches photos to emails or helps create web galleries using templates and even animations for your web site. Creates dozens of special effects. Prints multiple photos on one page to save photo paper. My only complaint might be that there is too much that you can do and it gets daunting at times. It is however far simpler and user friendly than the professional versions.
Rating: Summary: Nice, but you need more Review: I own a lot of Adobe products, and Photoshop elements was a good choice. However, I noticed that, unless you are familiar with the way Adobe works or have other Adobe products already installed on your computer, this is not the best product you can buy. For people with less experience with Adobe products, programs like Windows Editor or just being creative with Paint in the Microsoft Office Program. If you must use this program (Because it can do really fascinating things) I recommend putting the online tutorials in your bookmarks. You might need them.
Rating: Summary: 90% of Photoshop for 10% of the price Review: I had always meant to learn Photoshop, since it seemed to me to be the best way to learn about how digital imaging really works. I wanted to learn layering and masking and all those arcane things I had read about. However, I wasn't quite ready to make the $... investment that Photoshop requires. Instead, I struggled with Photoshop LE and Photo Deluxe. Neither of these was very satisfying, and Deluxe was especially geared to the greeting cards and "projects" audience. Elements 2.0 is really Photoshop with the pre-press taken out. It has all the layering and filters and plug-ins that you are likely to need for photo retouching and other uses you would normally need Photoshop to handle. I've been very pleased wiht the results I've had from it. If you need more power, buy Richard Lynch's book (Hidden Power of ....). He includes a CD with lots of additional tools like curves and RGB channels etc. that Adobe probably didn't want you to get in PS Elements. There are still some limitations. A few commercial plug-ins for PS don't work in Elements, and some instructions that you read for doing things in PS won't work in Elements. But this is the program to have if you want to get serious about photos. As an aside, let me strongly recommend a plug-in that works in Elements and regular PS. It's called iCorrect, and it lets you make very accurate color corrections with just a few clicks. It's really magic. check it out at Picto.com.
Rating: Summary: More than I expect!! Review: Photoshop Elements 2.0 gives me a full opportunity to create anything with pictures. I feel I become more creative with this program. When I see anything unique on magazines, TV shows or movies, I can get the idea and design the pictures with a plenty of features. At first, I was so frustrated with how to use the features, even with the manual book. I am not much of computer-user. After finding 2 wonderful books; Teaching yourself visually, PSE 2.0 and Restoration, they save me a hundred of hours of reading. I can be able to do with various features in minutes. Wow! I strongly recommend you to get those books if you are a beginninger. I also love the fast access to Shutterfly service. It is a wonderful and high quality program! When I was young, my dream was having a darkroom. Now, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 is an answer!
Rating: Summary: A huge improvement over Photoshop LE Review: I've been a little out of touch when it comes to Adobe products for the last few of years. Until about six months ago, Photoshop LE has been meeting my needs. Six months ago I replace my desktop with a Power Mac G4 (QS933) and in doing so, changed OS' to OSX pretty much exclusively. Four the last few months, when working with photos I've been running Photoshop LE in classic mode, and it had continue to work well. A couple of weeks ago (when Jaguar-10.2 came out) I decided to abandon classic all together and started shopping around for a new photo editing app and discovered Photoshop Elements 2.0. I've never used version 1.0 so I can't compare the two, but without question, Elements 2.0 is a huge improvement over LE. One of the biggest things I didn't like about LE was the lack of ability to go back and undo changes that I made to my images. While I really could not consider this a short coming to LE (the full version of Photoshop didn't have that ability back then), I always thought it would be useful as I was always making changes and applying filters that could not be undone (after the next change was made). I would end up playing around with a picture so much, it became almost useless, and then I'd start again from scratch until I found what I wanted. God bless Adobe for adding the history pallet with Elements. Now I can play around all I want, and if I don't like the results, I can go into the history pallet and delete any of the changes I made to the image. Unfortunately, once the image is saved, it does not save the history, but it's still a huge improvement over only being able to undo the last change. I simply can't tell you how valuable that feature is to me. The interface and tool bars are also much improved. While I always felt that LE was simple to use for basic editing, many of the more advanced filters and layers could be somewhat difficult for the novice to figure out. Elements 2.0 has made these advanced features much more usable with the excellent tutorial and Recipes feature. With the Recipe feature users are walked through features that would have been daunting even to intermediate users. Stability and responsiveness has been been very good on my machine. Thus far, Elements 2.0 seems almost as stable as OSX itself (in the year and a half I've been using OSX it (the OS) has NEVER crashed-hard to believe, but true). Elements does take longer to launch then LE, but with all the extra features, that's to be expected. I have been having some problems importing images from my digital camera, but I don't know if that's Adobe's fault, or Olympus', and is the only reason I give it four instead of five stars. Over all, Photoshop Elements 2.0 is an outstanding product. Not only does it have far more features then Photoshop LE, Adobe almost makes these features more accessible and easier to use. And, last and more importantly, it runs great in OSX.
Rating: Summary: Unreliable, no support Review: I've had photoshop elements 2.0 for about a year. It reams your memory, and all of a sudden just quit working. I have reinstalled it twice, it still wouldn't load a picture. The website has no support. Camera software is better. Don't waste your money.
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