Rating: 
Summary: Terrific Program
Review: I have about 7 different types of photo software, but none offer all of the tools that Photoshop Elements includes. While this program is a step down from Photoshop, and it's not really for a novice, it has a wealth of tools to utilize to create fabulous images from your photos et. al., including some that Photoshop doesn't have. Adobe also offers on-line help and tutorials to help you through, and there's a good number of books that can assist the user. The manual is a little tedious, but most of the fun is in discovering (by mistake!) the range of different applications that can be used on the same photo. Besides, with the rebates that are being offered, it's the best deal in town!
Rating: 
Summary: Not User Friendly
Review: I am sure this software is fine for users familiar with desktop publishing titles, but for someone who wants to exhibit, share and create photos from a scanner or digital camera, there are many others I've used that do not require prerequisite knowledge not readily available within the software. The "tutorials" are not much help either if you don't have the basics down and know what they are talking about. It was a real disappointment and an expensive lesson.
Rating:
Summary: Not stable under Windows 2000
Review: I installed this on Windows 2000 and it worked at first. Over time I've installed other software and now it no longer works. I've spent hours and hours trying to get it to work again and no suggestsions could be found in the knowledge base that solved the problem. I've removed most of the other software on my machine, re-installed multiple times and it still refuses to start. The failure message is too cryptic to be of much help. I'm wiping the disk this weekend and will reinstall everything. I'm hopefull that I can get things running again otherwise I wasted my money as well as my time.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for Novice Users!
Review: This program is full of features and sophistication that Photoshop users have come to love. However, I'm not an experienced Photoshop user. I struggled for hours just trying to understand the underlying principles. Doing things that are simple in other programs--recoloring a box, adding text, putting a background on things--don't feel the least bit intuitive or easy to me because I don't understand the inherent concepts of Photoshop (e.g., layers, palettes, feathering, etc.).If I could return it, I would, and get something better suited for a novice (like Easy Web Graphics) who is also an amateur Web site builder like me. If you're an experienced Photoshop pro, it's an awesome deal. Otherwise, tread carefully unless you're willing to invest hours in learning to be a Photoshop pro.
Rating: 
Summary: Best I've used
Review: I upgraded to this with my new scanner from Adobe Business Edition. It is much, much better! It has more options and features and is easier to use. I found that I was able to make some graphics using this program alone when I've had to use 2 or 3 programs to get the same results in the past. It allows you to move text around on a picture whereas you had to get it exactly where you wanted it the first time in my previous program.
Rating:
Summary: I Like it a Lot
Review: This is a very good piece of software for its price. It is stable, reliable, fast, loaded with features for beginners and non-professionals in general. Good starting point for its bigger brother Photoshop.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful Stuff
Review: At this writing, two products, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Paintshop Pro, are far more powerful than anything else in their price class. Power is the reason for buying Photoshot Elements, and not the Help facility nor the documentation. Indeed, the documentation is on the level of "Click this and drag that." Wouldn't it be nice if they told you why you want to do any of the things they are describing? Fortunately third party documentation abounds. Documentation aside, if you have a digital camera, you will need this product or something close. Let me justify that remark. With digital photography, images are cheap, and they are editable; with standard recreational (non-darkroom) photography, they are expensive and immutable. Thus, digital photography is to recreational photography as word processing is to typing. You don't throw out underexposed shots anymore; you brighten them. The shot doesn't work? Maybe part of it does. Maybe several parts do by themselves. To get all the juice out of this emerging technology, one requires sophisticated software. Adobe Photoshop Elements is such software. It isn't the simplest to use - precisely because it's worth using. Here's an example of what the product can do. My wife is Chinese. Her parents just now came to Pittsburgh for a visit. Naturally, we felt compelled to drag them through museums. I snapped two shots of wife, inlaws, and our four-year-old boy in front of a huge T-Rex. The vast room absorbed most of the flash, as I knew it would. My four-year-old was hard to control, and the inlaws, who speak no English, weren't sure when to pose. In the first shot, my son was the only one looking at the camera. In the second, he was the only one looking away. With Photoshop Elements, I supplied extra fill flash - not only in general, but to specific, extra dark spots. The effort saved the T-Rex from another extinction. Then (I shudder to confess') I pasted the kid's head from the first photo onto his body in the second. The resulting composition is seamless. It couldn't have been accomplished with a dumbed-down package, and I would have passed up the big room shot altogether with a non-digital camera. Very well, it's diabolical. Just don't tell my sister-in-law, who is, at this moment, admiring the result on her computer in Cheng Du.
Rating:
Summary: The Best I've ever used.
Review: I design and maintain my company's web site. This is the best I have ever used for preparing images for the web. I used to have to use 3 programs to do to an image everything I wanted. Now, I have uninstalled them all and use this one alone.
Rating:
Summary: GO...
Review: ...EAGLES! E...A...G...L...E...S! EAGLES! GO EAGLES!
Rating: 
Summary: Not user friendly - Must buy some books and study
Review: I have been using MS Photodeluxe for a couple of years now, but it always felt like it was missing something. Everyone said buy Photoshop, but you'll need to take a class on it to understand it (and a loan to pay for the software). Along comes Photoshop Elements with the promise of professional level tools, low cost, and easy to use interface. I jumped on it and unfortunately am a bit disappointed. I will eventually figure it out (after reading some books), but really don't feel it lives up to its hype. The help system is an embarrasment and doesn't follow the standards you see in other windows programs. Within help you can only get basic information. The program was obviously designed for Mac users who spend a lot of time in front of the screen manipulating images. It is not designed for windows users (doesn't follow standard menu layouts) and is not friendly to MS Office applications (ex. Photoshop graphics that have been pasted into Word cannot be edited again in Photoshop... actually they probably can be, but I'm not going to spend another four hours trying to get it to happen). Don't buy it if you are not going to commit a lot of time to learn Adobe products. I thought the days of excessive studying to learn software were over, but Adobe doesn't think so.
|
