Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 (Mac)

Rating:
Summary: Why Recommend Photoshop Elements 3?
Review: I highly recommend Photoshop Elements 3 for editing and enhancing your digital photographs. Cost and quality of Photoshop Elements 3.0 makes this an excellent program for learning how to use the professional Photoshop tools.

Our Rhode Island Apple Group, President, Mark Rafferty, showed us the simple ways that Photoshop Elements 3.0 can be used for editing photographs from our digital camera. Mark Rafferty's previous Saturday classes on digital photography were outstanding. I am looking forward to more of Mark's Saturday classes at his home.

What is new about  Photoshop Elements 3.0?

You can share photos with friends. Photoshop Elements now has dynamic slideshows that include music and special effect transitions.

Photoshop Elements 3.0 also adds new photo editing features and editing tools. This allows you to remove flaws, transform photos with effects and filters and correct the photo's color and lighting.

How to Work with Photoshop Elements 3?

I set the Preference in Photoshop Elements. I can change: General, Display and Cursor, Transparency, Units and Rulers. Next, I can change the Photoshop Elements' Grid (includes snap to Grid), Plug-ins, Memory and Image Cache and File Browser.

The feature that works well for me is the QuickFix module. This allows me to automatically correct the color, sharpness, auto levels and contrast. The Process Multiple files allow me to resize my photo images. Also, using the QuickFix module, I can convert my photos to various formats such as Photoshop Raw, jpg and psd.

The Photo Bin feature allows me to move from photo to photo. This is easy when I  click on the various thumb nails icons. This is a time saver since I know instantly what photos I have opened in Photoshop Elements.

I use Photomerge in Photoshop Elements 3.0 for making a panoramic photograph of a bridge. Photoshop Elements stitches the five to seven photographs of the bridge into one large picture. My favorite photo collages are made in Photomerge. I manually stitch together the photo images in Photoshop Elements' program.


Pro Reaction

*     The redesigned user interface provides an ideal balance between ease of use and flexibility.

*     Photoshop Elements 3.0 now includes many new tools from Photoshop CS.

*     The user interface has three work areas: Photo Browser, Quick Fix, and Standard Edit.

*     Photoshop Elements has a Healing brush, cookie cutter tool, RAW & 16-bit support, divide scanned photos and photo filters.

Con Reaction

*     Missing is the Extract tool and layer mask.

*     I noted that Photoshop Elements 3.0 is slow in opening, closing, and switching modes.

*     You have to study and work with the manual to enjoy full use of Photoshop Elements tools.

Final Notes

I find that using Photoshop Elements 3.0  is all I need to organize, edit  and share digital photos. I now have very good editing tools for correcting and enhancing photos, drawings, and paintings. Photoshop Elements has several printing options: Contact Sheets, Picture Package, labels, single prints, and online service.



Rating:
Summary: Another take on "A Reader's" comments
Review: I recently returned from a Photoshop seminar (run by digital photo professionals with no interest in sales of software). I am a home user and I use PSE to edit family pictures. The main reason that I am getting v3 is the 'Shadow and Highlight' tool. I learned in this seminar, and had this confirmed elsewhere, that this is the best way to edit skin color and brightness. Far better than other tools such as levels adjustment and especially Brightness or Contrast adjustments which give unnatural results.

Rating:
Summary: still good but for OS X its not much of an upgrade
Review: I'm on a Mac and have used Adobe Elements 2.0 for years to edit photos. I just upgraded to 3.0.

For editing both are very similar and good.

My major reason for upgrading was to improve the performance of the image browser. I had been using Graphic Converter to browse and Elements to edit (at the same time and a pain). Unfortunately 3.0 is no improvement in browsing. Its slooooow, it can't deal with large folders (500 pix+) and it dies/crashes on anything but a perfect file (no end of file will crash it). For those with images downloaded off the web, its a pain to use.

Back to Graphic Converter.

A good package for editing but the browser is still pretty useless.

Rating:
Summary: A waste of upgrade dollars for Mac users
Review: If you already have version 2 of Photoshop Elements, don't waste your money upgrading to version 3 unless you want to pay the full amount to use a healing brush insted of the cloning stamp.

Most of the new functionality is geared towards Windows users with the new Organizer and its cataloging, scrapbooking, cards, and calendars features. The Organizer is NOT available to Mac users. Photoshop Elements remains great software for digital darkroom work, but Adobe has elected to leave Mac users out in the cold with respect to providing tools to easily do something creative with the pictures once they have been digitally processed.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't load
Review: Only the lowest rating for this piece of junk, because it consistently refuses to load on a PowerBook. It hangs up while preparing target disc. I have spent about one full workday so far, talking to Adobe and to Apple, seeking irrelevant problems with the computer, and trying all the suggested tricks, and I am exactly where I started: it doesn't load.

I do not believe that this program is capable of loading on our PowerBook, which handles everything else just fine. Adobe, ususally known for good quality in software, blew it with this one. Hang onto you version 2. It's either hang onto your old program, or enjoy watching version 3 hang up repeatedly while you are trying to install it.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding value, impressive features, and easy to use!
Review: PhotoShop Elements 3.0 is an outstanding value! I used PhotoShop Elements 2 for more than a year, and I've recently upgraded. Like its predecessor, version 3 sports a very user-friendly interface and offers impressive features. I've not had any compatibility problems, and I've definitely been putting the program through its paces. It works seamlessly with my Canon scanner, does a great job merging images into panoramic scenes, and its improved auto-fix tool (Auto Smart Fix) does a great job. I really like the new Quick Fix mode (you can now switch between a streamlined Quick Fix mode and Standard Edit mode). The Spot Healing, Healing Brush, and Cookie Cutter tools are terrific additions in version 3. Although, I do wish there were a History Brush in Elements.

I recommend PhotoShop Elements to my students, friends, and family, and I've been very pleased with my upgrade to version 3. If you want an affordable, easy to use program with impressive features for digital imaging, get this program! You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: PSE 3.0 Quits
Review: While I haven't had this software for long, I find that it quits when I try to print. I have never gotten a hard copy for an image using this software. It also completely quits when I click the red button to close a image window.

The smart fix doesn't do much for the few images I have tried to edit, the difference being undetectable sometimes. I do need a good manual for this, perhaps, but I find it worth (...), and certainly not worth the [price] that they want, full price, now. My software coming with my Mac, Pixel Enhance, seems to do just as good a job in the final image. I bought this to save having to restart in Classic to use PhotoDeluxe 2.0, but I find the latter software easier to use. I've never had the full version of PhotoShop, so that limits my experience in using Adobe products.

I hope they post a patch or update to solve these problems, but I doubt they'll do that. I haven't tried the Merge panorama feature yet, but my software coming with my Nikon Coolpix does a good job at that.