Rating: 
Summary: photoshop elements
Review: When I bought this I was under the impression(from the tiny price) that this would be a weak program compared to photoshop 7. However having used photoshop elements 2.0 for a few weeks now I havnt once wished I had photoshop 7 because elements has all the tools I would ever need, and about 700 pound cheaper than its bigger brother. If your a student, or just an amatuer photographer, dont pay big money for photoshop 7/CS, elements has all you will need.
Rating: 
Summary: What a nightmare!
Review: I have an idea. Let's take a very powerful, professional level software, yank some expensive features and shove it down the throats of average users. As a user, I am very familiar with Photoshop and use it with some regularity. I find many of the concepts and interface parts of elemtns familiar. But this is being pushed on non-pros which is my problem. I have had to become an Adobe customer support person fro my family because this darn thing is too hard to learn and get used to. Support from Adobe is almost non existent so I continually answer questions and teach usage to my family members. I should have tried something easier!
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Indispensable!
Review: I'm a teacher, and have used Elements at home and school for a couple of years now. I have used it on PCs at school, and on my Mac system 9 and system 10.2 at home. It is wonderful on all of the platforms! I taught a class of middle school students who speak little English to use this program to "play" with photos... changing colors, adding a background or a frame, giving photos effects, such as a painted look. They have used it also to modify artwork that they uploaded, then afterwards, they copied and pasted their art and photos into a school newspaper we created. They have done amazing things that makes them look like computer experts! I use Elements for my personal photos. Besides correcting and editing single photos, I have created a collage of photos, by copying and pasting several photos onto a single background, and added text and other artwork to the collage. I use it to fix colors that don't come out well from my digital camera, especially to tone down reds and blues that come out too bright. I use it to resize photos so that I can print them as small or as large as I want. And I've softened the edges to give photos an old-fashioned look. There is so much you can do with it! I also use Elements for an online business which requires photos of the products I sell. My camera is good, but to make the photos look really good for selling stuff, they need a little extra work. Yes, with Elements you can make your product look even better than it does in reality, but I don't do that. I make the product look AS GOOD as it looks in person! My general procedure is
1. Crop (to reduce extra background)
2. Resize (to make it fit into the space allowed on the website, and to make it an appropriate resolution that won't slow down the loading of the web page.)
3. Adjust lighting and contrast to make details easy to see.
4. Sharpen, to bring the photo into better focus. All of this is not something you do immediately upon loading the software. There is some study to do of helpful books or by taking a class. I have done both of those things, as well as play around with the software to discover what can be done with it. There are quite a few books that give all kinds of ideas for uses and wonderful projects, and I still have a lot to learn. However, what I have learned has been indispensable for my photo work, both at home and school! I have used other photo editing software, some of it simpler to figure out, but much more limited in their capabilities. Elements can do so much, I will never need to buy the full, expensive version of Photoshop. Elements can do almost as much at a fraction of the cost. I highly recommend it!
Rating: 
Summary: A star is much too much, Need a Flat Tire rating.
Review: First of all, the rebate requires evidence of having previously purchased other Adobe or similar products. If you have the materials to satisfy all of Adobe's stipulations, and are left handed and born on February 29th, you may qualify for the rebate. Now, try and run the blasted thing. On my Windows XP it can't find AOL even when it is lurking there in the background. To register the product or run the tutorial you must go online, but it can't. Adobe's website indicates that internet explorer 4.0 must be present, and that the proper path must be written in the whatever file, but immediately warns that this path should only be attempted by a someone qualified to do so and that ordinary mortals like me should take up kite flying. Well, I now learn that my system has Internet Explorer 6.0 and Adobe's klunker is still as befuddled as I am. If you wish make a charitable donation to Adobe you may do so by buying this product. Otherwise I strongly suggest avoiding it at any cost.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Software
Review: Adobe has consistantly put out great video and photo editing software...problem is that it has been quite expensive. Photoshop Elements is well under $100 and has the same great quality as the expensive stuff. Adobe Elements is just like Photoshop in that you use layers to edit photos. The Quick Fix feature is nice when you have a lot of pictures and just want to quickly touch them up a little bit. You can spend a lot more time and REALLY edit photos as well. My favorite feature is the Clone tool that lets you copy directly from one part of the photo to another. For example, I had a good picture of my 3 yr. old son except that he had a cut under one eye. I used the Clone tool to select the "good" skin just under the cut and then copied it over the cut. Since I copied from part of the picture immediately next to the bad area, the tone was perfect and nobody could tell it was doctored up. Using Layers can be a little tricky, but the tutorial that comes with Adobe is quite good and the Help menu is always good for a quick reference. Again, software like this is trial-and-error. Play with one feature until you are comfortable with it and then tackle something else. As with anything, you will find yourself using just a few of your favorite features over and over again. There are thousands of things this software can do, but for my use, I pretty much use the same dozen or so features on a regular basis. I bought Picture It a while back and liked it, but Photoshop Elements is about the same price and does considerably more when it comes to editing. This is the best value I have ever received from a software product.
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Summary: A Second Review of Elements
Review: If you page back in these reviews on Photoshop Elements 2.0, you may find the one that I submitted last November. I've never re-reviewed a product before, so this is a first for me. Having owned Elements for almost a year, I can honestly say that this is without a doubt the second best and second most powerful editing program I've used, and believe me, I've tried them all I think. The best and most powerful of course being Photoshop 7. For those of you considering purchasing either Photoshop 7 or Elements 2, you need to ask yourself one question....do I need the extra tools and capabilities of Photoshop for what I do with my images? You'd have to do some pretty serious justifying to spend six times the cost of Elements. In all honesty, I spent a considerable amount of time comparing Photoshop 7 and Elements tools to each other over the past 11 months, and with the exeption of the healing brush, the patch tool, the history brush, curves, and channels, there wasn't much I couldn't do in Elements and usually with fewer steps.
Let's just use red-eye removal as an example since everybody has that problem. In Photoshop 7, the best way to remove red-eye is with the channel mixer...a very labor-intensive prosess requiring multiple selections and adjustments. It works beautifully and once you're used to it, no big deal. However, in Elements, it's usually a one-click process. (Here's a little tip...the red-eye removal tool is nothing more than a color replacement tool in disguise. You can use it to replace the color in just about anything). However, let it be known that you can also replace color the exact same way that it's done in Photoshop 7. The commands are just in different menus, that's all. One other example is for effects. In Photoshop 7, there's a command to "fade" (whatever effect you've applied). Choosing this command opens a dialog box with a slider to adjust the fade and also the layer styles menu. The slider is nothing more than an opacity adjust. The same thing can be done in Elements by changing the opacity of the layer in the layers pallet. The layer styles menu is there as well. These are just two examples...I could keep going, but I don't have that much time or allocated space here. I read one review in here that didn't recommend Elements for a professional. Well, I disagree whole-heartedly. I do photography and graphics full-time for a living, and I use this program all the time. It's served me well. Granted, it's not a replacement for what I do in Photoshop 7, but for many applications I get the same results usually with less labor involved. If I had to pick one thing that I'd like to see in Elements it would be the ability to work with channels. There is a book out called "The Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements" that comes with software that will allow you to use channels, curves, etc., in a roundabout way, but it does work. Can't afford or don't need to spend $600 bucks for Photoshop 7??? Go for Elements for around $50 after the rebate and the book for another $30 and you'll be in business. By the way...in case you haven't heard, the new version of Photoshop is on the way. It's "Photoshop CS" and the price is going up another $50. Elements 3 won't be far behind, and who knows what new surprises Adobe may decide to add.
Rating:
Summary: Great product for your money.
Review: I have worked with this product on several occations. However, I actually own Photoshop 7.0.
I rate this item well because it is a great item for the money and is especially usefull to those who want to help their photos or add some effects to them, but don't know much of anything abouthow to do it. It works for many who don't need complete control over their images. You can get some cool effects with this product and even fix some color problems on your image or add text. This product is just a very toned down version of Photoshop. It is great for beginners who want to learn more about Photoshop, but can't afford the product yet. I recommend this item over ALL others of its type.
I do not recommend this item to a professional digital imager who does this for a living because you need to go get the full version.
Rating:
Summary: This does what it is meant to do! 5 stars!
Review: With the amazon.com price of about 60$, you can't go wrong.
Adobe Photoshop Elements v2.0 is aimed at being a relatively cheap priced program that can be used to create simple graphics and edit photos/pictures (even web graphics). This program does it flawlessly. First off, this program is just a "toned-down" version of Adobe Photoshop. Having said that, this still offers a wide range of features that the average person will find overwhelming. Because it is based off of photoshop, this has some great features such as Selecting, layers, photo touch-up, color adjustments and transperency; the same Exact ones that are in photoshop! The sad fact is that, most computers eaither come with no image editing software, or very little such as microsoft Picture It!. Also, i have looked at several digital cameras and seen the software that comes with them. I am very dissapointed with it. Basically these are just ment to quickly crop, edit colors, add text, and transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer. Adobe Elements v2.0 does all this, and better! If you recently bought a digital camera, have the need to create simple web graphics, or want to touch up previous pictures this is your best bet. Jasc Paint Shop Pro is another alternitive, but i prefer the Adobe elements.
The documentation is very "cryptic", and does not "teach". There are a ton of tutorials though online for FREE provided by adobe which offer a hands-on approach to learing many of the features of Elements. Something Paint Shop Pro does not excell at. Also, there are a lot of books writen on elements 2.0 that will teach people how to use Elements. I will be honest, if you have NEVER used any photo-editing software, and do not know the basics of how to use a computer, you will find yourself lost! In that case, i 100% recommend you get a book to accompany this software. It might take you a while to learn the in's-and-out's of how to use this software to its fullest, but once you do you will be able to do amazing things. But, what sets Adobe Elements away from the competition is that Most Adobe products "act the same". What i mean by this is that, the "the magic wand tool" that is found in other adobe products is the same exact one in elements. This is true for most of the features and tools that Adobe products have. This helps make the transition over from other adobe products very effortless, in-case you have worked with other products or plan on working with other adobe products. I have used several adobe products, including GoLive6, Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, Indesign2, and have experimented with other's as well. I am very impressed at what these can do; granted that some are expensive, they do amazing things! The only major downfall, is that Adobe makes you sign their end-user liscense agreement, which basically states that Adobe is not liable for any damage or lose of data done to your computer ... EVEN IF THEY KNEW IT WOULD, a very disapointing thing from such a large company! To sum up:
If you are looking for a fairly simple software program to edit and touch up photos, and even create a few of your own(at a relitively cheap price), Elements v2.0 should be your best bet. I recommend you goto http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jhtml and download the 30-day trial version before buying it. Give it a shot for a few days, see how it works, and if you like it, i would recommend you get it! ~Hope this helps!
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Not Photoshop, But Does The Job!
Review: I purchased Photoshop Elements when I was hired by my father to create a presentation about his recent trip to Vietnam. I found that it did an exceptional job for what we needed for that project (mainly just simple color/brightness/contrast corrections, and cropping,) but, once I got to trying to use it for my own purposes, such as complex original creations needing features such as guides or advanced layer transparencies, it fell way short of what I needed. The bottom line here is that Elements is for the person who wants to do photo touch-ups and simple effects (like embossing and liquifying, etc,) but certainly isn't powerful enough for a creative professional.
Rating:
Summary: The Elements Of Adobe Photoshop 2.0
Review: I usually don't review products unrelated to music, but this is one of the few that I absolutely think is a major start in the right direction for the beginner. This is a great product to get aquainted with, if you are interested in digital editing and imaging. This product allows one to also become familiar with making web graphics. A brilliant product at a great price.so if you are looking to experiment with digital imaging and editing this is the one to start with.
I don't believe in supporting products but this one stands a #10 with me.
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