Anybody have experience with PS Elements?

kshapero

kshapero

South Florida Man
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I want Photoshop but can not afford it. Is PS Elements (4.0/5.0) a good choice? Any other suggestions?
:confused:
 
If you aren't planning to do pre-press work, you will probably find Elements 4.0 handles your needs. Exactly what do you want it to do?
 
Joe Brugger said:
If you aren't planning to do pre-press work, you will probably find Elements 4.0 handles your needs. Exactly what do you want it to do?
Click to expand...
Touch up work from my scans and then load them into a web site or to print them to a service. That's about it.
 
Elements 5.0 is 16bit, has curves, can load from RAW (for digital shots), can correct lens distortion (vignetting, barrel, chromatic etc), way more "quick fixes" like healing brush, shadows & highlights.

In short, it's the version I'm finally going to update to from version 2.0 :) I've been waiting for quite a while but 2.0 served me very well.

At this point, I'll say that Elements 5.0 is very close to CS2.

It's USD$89- new or USD$69 for an upgrade.

But if all you want is to just do some touching up, ask around if anyone has an older copy of Elements 2.0 for sale. It was commonly bundled with many DSLRs & scanners.
 
Kin Lau said:
Elements 5.0 is 16bit, has curves, can load from RAW (for digital shots), can correct lens distortion (vignetting, barrel, chromatic etc), way more "quick fixes" like healing brush, shadows & highlights.

In short, it's the version I'm finally going to update to from version 2.0 :) I've been waiting for quite a while but 2.0 served me very well.

At this point, I'll say that Elements 5.0 is very close to CS2.

It's USD$89- new or USD$69 for an upgrade.

But if all you want is to just do some touching up, ask around if anyone has an older copy of Elements 2.0 for sale. It was commonly bundled with many DSLRs & scanners.
Click to expand...
very helpful. I will get 5.0 sounds great!
 
Does Elements support layers? Imho a very important feature. Doing adjustments (like curves) I always use a new (adjustment) layer, so I can play with different curves etc. Also for more complex pictures where different parts of the picture are handled differently..

If 8 bit is not the decisive point you could also try Gimp, which won't cost you anything.
 
ffttklackdedeng said:
Does Elements support layers? Imho a very important feature. Doing adjustments (like curves) I always use a new (adjustment) layer, so I can play with different curves etc. Also for more complex pictures where different parts of the picture are handled differently..

If 8 bit is not the decisive point you could also try Gimp, which won't cost you anything.
Click to expand...

Nearly as functional as full CS regarding layers; there are plug-ins (shareware) that will give full curves-functionality as well.
 
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For what you want, either 2 or 5 will work You can get Curves in 2 from a few places. 8 bit won't matter a whole lot-but if you do use 8 bit, I'd recommend sRGB for colorspace instead of Adobe RGB.
 
I was just looking into a PSE 5.0 upgrade, because I'd really like the curves functionality, but I just stumbled across this red flag yesterday ( from http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/photoshop-elements-curves.html):

"Update 09/12/2006 - In an exciting development, Adobe has today announced the release of Photoshop Elements 5.0. It looks like it includes a number of great new features including Curves! This looks like a great upgrade for Elements users.

Update 10/12/2006 - False alarm. The curves that Adobe included in Elements 5 are quite lame indeed. Found under Enhance >> Adjust Color >> Adjust Color Curves..., it only works on 8-bit images, and provides only minimal ability to vary from the preset curves provided. Very disappointing. A small screen shot of the Elements 5 Curves dialog is shown here. You can download the trial version if you want to check it out for yourself, but don't expect much."

However, if you're on an earlier version of PSE than 4, you might be able to use the EarthBoundLight plugins.

I'm going to checkout both LightZone and do some more research on the GIMP.

Duane
 
Curves is over sold. Judiciously use backlight or fill light. Or better the middle slider on the levels.

Best is to select the dark area on a duplicate background layer, then layers-new adjustment layer- pick levels. Do not group with previous layer.

You have now created a layer mask by the back door that is not available in PSE. Now use the 5 levels sliders to manipulate the selected areas. The marching ants will not appear on the picture you are working on, but only those areas will change.

Remember the top three sliders control increasing contrast at both white and black points and the center is variable grey point(curves). The lower two control lowering contrast at either end.

Like I said, you can do this globally or with a layer mask of individual areas.

You need to learn how to make selections with the magic wand. It can be done quickly and easily with the tolerence control at the top and use the boxes, new selection, add to selection, subtract from selection contiguous and noncontiguous . Multiple clicks at low tolerence will keep adding to the selection until you get it all selected.
 
Two things: The free Easycurve plugin gives full curves functionality to PSE.
and why don't you download the beta-version of Adobe Lightroom for free (until Februari next year)That is the future, PSE is the past...
 
Sorry for throwing a spanner into the works; just thinking out loud really...

I am a Mac user on both Classic and OSX, and have been using most Photoshop releases since 2.5.1. For my use, the "sweet spot" is Version 5.x, with all the features I need nicely laid out but not encumbered by the bells and whistles. It might be a viable idea to get a used/NOS copy of an earlier compatible version which tend to be very inexpensive, rather than a new copy of a cut-down current release.
 
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