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Summary: Elements Users Guide
Review: The users manual packaged with Adobe Elements is not quite useless for a non-professional, just getting started digital photographer. I can hardley wait till someone will produce a users guide that it clearly written and walks you through the various steps so as to be able to take advantage of what Elements has to offer. Withy more and more novices such as myself getting into digital photography I am amazed that such a book does not exist and that Adobe does not offer one. For me it is a struggle trying to work Elements and I find myself relying on Adobe 5 for which a claer and user freindly bokk exists. I would not recommend Elements to any one in my situation untill such a manual is available. The frustration is just not worth it ! ! !
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Summary: Don't touch it
Review: This software is [costly] and I expected for more features.
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Summary: Adobe Photoshop Elements
Review: I still have a great deal to learn about this program, but so far it is much more extensive then the previous Adobe Photoshop that I had, version 2.5, which came free with my printer and it also seems like it is much easier to use
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Summary: Definitely worth the effort!
Review: Opening up Photoshop Elements for the first time and viewing the desktop could be intimidating for the novice, but it is definitely worth the effort of spending a little time on the tutorials, manual, and self-exploration. This application puts other graphics editing products like Microsoft's PhotoDraw to shame, especially for the price. As an example, one feature called "Variations" shows a "what-if" scenario for color correction without having to make and undo changes to your photo until you get the effect you want. Instead, a window opens that shows a thumbnail of the photo in its current state and displays around it thumbnails that show how it would look with more red, more yellow, more blue, etc. Without leaving that window you can also view how different levels of color saturation will affect your photo. Other editing is also quite easy. One of my photos had an ashtray in the foreground on a distressed glass table. By using the clone stamp with a spatter brush, I was able to completely eliminate the ashtray and preserve the mottled look of the table, including highlights. It is absolutely impossible to tell the ashtray was ever there. This maneuver took all of about 30 seconds. I recommend Photoshop Elements for all levels of users who care enough about their photos to do more than just simple cropping. After using Elements for a few days, I deleted PhotoDraw from my system altogether.
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Summary: The not-so-light fantastic
Review: For those of us who have no desire to publish the work we've prepared with Photoshop (RGB only), "Elements" is a useful light version of, say, a full-scale version such as Photoshop 6. Decumentation, however, leaves much to be desired. The book accompanying the application is confusing and seems out of order. The tutorials are worse. Unless one prints them out, it's virtually impossible to work with them.Despite these major failings, Adobe Photoshop Elements is vastly superior to Photoshop Deluxe, and seems to be bargain.
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Summary: great learning program
Review: being a new student to photoshop with the 5.5 version,i am amazed at how easy and well the learning tips and hints are given to us who are just begining.the whole program is so simple to figure out that if i had this to start with i know i would have saved months of self taught hours,thank you adobe.
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Summary: A curate's egg.
Review: As Adobe's replacement to Photoshop LE 5.0, Elements has some good points and some not so good. On the plus side the most useful improvements are the inclusion of a multi- step redo feature via Window > Show History; and the selected-tool option bar, which makes for less clicking to be gone through whenever you wish to change a tool's attributes - similar to Photoshop 6.0. The downside with this application is that, unlike LE 5.0, Elements needs a pretty hefty computer to run. I loaded it onto a P90 running NT 4.0 and found the application to very, very slow in comparison to LE 5.0, which runs well on such an old machine. At least a 400 MHz machine would be needed to get rapid results. Many of the more useful image level adjustments are not too easily found, with much too much emphasis being given over to preset options where the more useful ones would normally reside. This is inconsistent with Photoshop LE 5.0, 5.5, and 6.0 and prejudices the notion that Elements is a learning gateway to the bigger application. My feeling is that adding the multi-step redo feature to LE 5.0 would have been quite sufficient for a product at this price point. Adobe have tried hard with Elements to make it more accessible to non-technical types, but the way in which they have gone about this is to make it appear that the application is not as comprehensive as it is by dumbing things down and hiding the important features. Nevertheless it's all there, and remarkable value for the price, which, with some determination on the user's part, will provide a rewarding means of manipulating their images.
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Summary: Adobe Photoshop Elements
Review: I've been using the 30 day free trial version for around a week now, and as a relative newcomer to digital imaging am finding this product very straightforward and intuitive to use. Will certainly be buying when the trial runs out. ****1/2
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Summary: Does what I need quickly
Review: After using many image editing software packages, I found Photoshop Elements does what I need faster than any other. My criteria is based on how fast I can: 1. Get an image from my scanner or digital camera 2. Crop it 3. Fix red eye 4. Adjust overall brightness, contrast, color. 5. Darken or lighten specific areas 6. Save it .jpg Practically all the software I've used can do all of my list, although some packages can't darken or lighten specific areas. Some programs are so simple that they become hard to work with; It takes forever to crop a picture with Microsoft Picture It. Adobe PhotoDeluxe will only save as a .pdd, you have to do several extra steps to export it as a .jpg. I really don't use all the extra features and filters and special effects, although PhotoMerge is pretty cool. I know my way around a darkroom, but photography isn't my life. I just want to clean up pictures and move on. Adobe Photoshop Elements allows me to improve and correct my pictures quickly. But when I want to do something artistic, it works great. Look... Buy or Go to your local library and check out the book "50 Fast Digital Photo Techniques". It has a CD that contains trial versions of Photoshop Elements as well as several other programs. Try them side by side. Find the one that works best for you, I'll bet it's Photoshop Elements.
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Summary: Well worth its price !
Review: I upgraded to Photoshop Elements from Photoshop 5.0 LE last week. The package arrived promptly. Yes, there is a manual, unlike some software packages I have(such as MS Office 2001). But, many features are not explained fully in the paper manual (hence the four star rating). I think the program itself is competent enough for most "prosumer" level users. My favorite features that are not in the LE version? Unlimited undos, history pallet, editable text, the ability to position image on a page. Feature that I wished included: the ability to save selection. To me, Elements included quite a few very useful features missing in LE. It's well worth the upgrade fee. The program is very solid on my iMac. No problems with working with several 5-10 megs files at a time with the default memory setting.
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