Photoshop Elements

Elements is not a limited version of big-brother Photoshop--in fact, there are very few features of Photoshop that Elements doesn't offer, and it has been redesigned with plenty of straightforward editing tools suitable for the novice or business user. To aid those who are less familiar with image editing, the new Recipes palette gives step-by-step tutorials for applying common actions to a graphic, allowing the user to grow increasingly adept. Some steps are accompanied by a "do it for me" button that brings up the tool in question for that step.

Many features will be familiar to Photoshop users--the floating tool bar with brushes, the background eraser for removing background details while leaving your foreground image intact and the Save for the Web command which generates just the right sized GIF, JPG, or PNG image for your Web page.

Each of the vertical tool bar tools in Elements is accompanied by a unique set of options below the main menu bar that relate to the selected tool. Select the Clone Stamp, for example, and the tool bar displays choices for changing the clone stamp's size, tolerance, and so on.

Adobe has added several appealing tools. One such item, PhotoMerge, lets you stitch multiple shots of an area into a single panorama. You can also straighten and crop photos that are scanned askew, auto adjust for brightness and colour saturation and brush away red eye. These added features make it ideal for users with digital cameras and scanners. There are other additions too, such as the new File Browser tab that shows a thumbnail of all the images in the current folder, as well as displaying examples of filters and special effects on your selected image. A nice update to the Undo command is the History palette which tracks each step in your edit process. A slider bar lets you move backwards or forwards incrementally through the history so you can decide which steps to keep.

You won't find colour separations, CMYK or other acronyms and functions meant only for publishing pros. On the other hand, Elements offers plenty of exporting and printing options for sharing your photos in print or on the Web, such as a Picture Package feature that automatically generates multiple versions of the same image on a sheet of paper. Images can also be sent directly to Shutterfly.com via the program's new Online Services Wizard. Shutterfly lets you create glossy prints of your image, e-mail them to your friends or print them on greeting cards. Because of Elements' ability to download new services in the future, other Adobe partners may eventually appear in this Wizard. All in all, this is an extremely good value package and one which, unless you need professional-level colour-separation for printing, should provide everything needed for digital-image editing. --Simon Priestly

The main shortcomings for the enthusiast is the lack of colour management options - it's hard to get to the state of what you see on-screen is what you get on your printer. It's close, but for some subject matter, not quite close enough.

The other shortcoming is the lack of ability to print mulitple images on one page - something a home user is likely to want to do.

Aside from that, it's a well-designed product that won't disappoint. It's ideal for the beginner and comes highly recommended.


A real bargain!   November 30, 2001
C. Walls (Cirencester, Gloucestershire United Kingdom)
47 out of 47 found this review helpful

Like it or not, Photoshop is the "Microsoft Word" of the image processing world [sorry, that wasn't meant to be an insult to Adobe :-)]. Where ever you look - all the best books and articles - Photoshop is used for the examples. Problem is that it costs and arm and a leg.

For ages, I struggled by with Photoshop LE, which was OK, but had limitations. I was not prepared to pay the price of the full package. Then Elements was released and the problem solved. The 2 things I really, really wanted were multiple undoes and adjustment layers. Now I've got those and lots more besides.

You can use the program in simple ways, if that's all you want, but it has all the power for the most ambitious amateur. It really is great value for money.


OK for Web - lousy for print   October 16, 2001
44 out of 66 found this review helpful

Most of of us sweat through Photoshop and probably only use about 5% of its potential. Intuitive it isn't. So when Elements appeared I thought that it would provide an easy, accessible way into the 5% I use.
Wrong. It's just as complex, and doesn't offer the masking techniques which its big brothers provide.
I'm puzzled as to which market segment Adobe are pitching this product. You can get a much more intuitive package from Serif or Corel. Maybe web workers find this edition useful, but for print it remains too complex. A thorough disappointment.


Imaging power on the cheap   March 31, 2001
Jonathan@ealesonline.co.uk (Basingstoke, England)
34 out of 34 found this review helpful

Adobe Photoshop Elements

The perfect successor to Adobe's Photoshop Limited Edition this new non-professional image editing package is based on Photoshop 6 and gives the digital photographer, hobbyist, web designer and casual business user a powerful, full featured software tool. This is no cut down version, in fact in some areas it expands on Photoshop's capabilities with features such as; Recipes (instructions for multistep tasks) for removing dust and scratches as well as red eye; and neat functions like crop and straighten.

It follows Photoshop's usual user interface, which while different from traditional Windows, really suits the world's premier image editing application. Elements also contains a large portion of all the filters and photo-retouching tools of its bigger brother, together with web tools such as basic GIF animation and file optimisation, and layers and history palette. In fact Photoshop Elements does not lack anything noteworthy and is a fraction of the price.

I like the hints with small diagrams that appear when you select and use commands, these really help a beginner to use the program and can always be turned off for the more experienced user, leaving a unobtrusive small text description in the status field. Simple tools like the hand to pan the image so that you can easily work in small detail areas are so effective. And with 100 filters to play with the image enhancement possibilities are almost endless.

This program has real depth and power yet it guides the users in gently allowing them to simply enhance their scanned pictures or digital photos, as well as showing them other possibilities. For example, image stitching with Photo-Merge, layers and other technical wizardry allowing them to achieve digital imagery greatness. Photoshop Elements includes a complete set of introduction tutorials supplemented with advanced concepts available from Adobe Online. A printed user guide is included with the application.

All image editing programs require more system resources than most other applications and Photoshop Elements is no exception. It also makes a good reason to buy that larger monitor that you've always wanted.

This review is based on the download Trial version of Adobe Photoshop Elements as the retail version is not available in the UK yet.


A must-have for the keen digital photographer   September 21, 2001
31 out of 34 found this review helpful

This is the ideal package for making the most of your digital camera.

It combines ease of use with much of the professional power of Photoshop.

All the essential tools are there, like color casting to remove the blue tinge neon lighting might cast on a photograph, and automatic contrast & brightness corrections.

Then there's a superb photograph stiching tool which allows you to create huge panoramas.

All the filters, layers & effects allow you to easily have fun and create trick photographs. There's even a "Liquify" filter, similar to the Goo program.

And all this is based on the rock-solid professional Photoshop 6 base. This is a cut above in quality from any other digital imaging package - have you ever tried making a huge collage in Paintshop Pro for example?

And (although Adobe don't advertise this) all the Photoshop 3rd-party plug-ins you can download from the internet seem to work fine.

I'm completely hooked on this product! And it's the real thing - just take a look at any Digital Arts magazine.