PS Elements enough?

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thorsten

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I have to spend some money on Photoshop since I recently changed from Windows to Mac and don't have a Mac-version. During the last months I realized, that I mainly use the following in Photoshop:

levels
a bit of curves
usm
resize/crop
sometimes shadows/highlights

I now think of getting just PS Elements 4, but unfortunately Adobe doesn't offer a trial for Mac, so I can't check out myself. So can anyone of you tell me, if PS Elements would be enough for what I mentioned?

Thanks and kind regards,
 
I forgot to mention one important thing: I also used the print dialogue of Photoshop. Does Elements also offer this dialogue with possibilities to choose a method of profile conversion?
 
Hi Thorsten. I use CS2 on my PC and Elements on my Mac. I'm pretty new to Elements, but as far as I can tell the shadow/highlight does exist, but curves don't. Levels and cropping are also possible.

As for the printing with profile, I assume you're talking about CS2's ability to select a printer profile and then print with the driver set to no adjustments. This isn't possible as far as I can see. You can however convert to a profile - on my Mac this only allows sRGB or Adobe. Perhaps someone with more experience of Elements can comment.

For me Elements is just a stop gap until the universal binary of Photoshop CS (3?) becomes available next year. I tried the tryout version of CS2 on my Intel MacBook, but it was painfully slow.

Steve
 
PS Elements doesn't have Curves. Get a copy of Richard Lynch's Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements. This has a number of tools that access features hidden in Elements, including Curves.
 
To me the question is, for how many of us is Photoshop worth $600? I have Elements 4, and am still learning my way around, but I just can't justify the price of PS. If some wish to, I won't stand in the way, but I'm not one for spending a lot of "digital darkroom" time in front of the computer. For that reason, I stick mostly to JPEG, even though I've seen remarks that it is for amateurs and pros use RAW. Fine and dandy, but I'm not a pro, either.
 
I've never used Elements, but have had Photoshop for many years. For most things I prefer to use a $35 shareware Mac program called GraphicConverter, whose impressive capabilities keep growing. It has its own photo browser feature and can edit and save virtually any graphic file format. I keep finding new capability, but it doesn't do layers... See it here: http://www.lemkesoft.com/en/graphcon.htm
 
Thanks for your answers so far. Doug, thank you for the link... I'll give GraphicConverter a try.

As far as Elements is concerned, I think I could get along without curves since most of it is also possible through levels. On the other hand, a nice printing option would be very important since I plan to print my scans on Hahnemuehle paper on an Epson R2400. For this I have to convert to Hahnemuehle's profile and print. Does Elements really not offer this? Is there perhaps another program exclusively for printing on a Mac or how do you get along?

Btw: I used to buy the student's version of CS2 for Windows. Now I'm no student anymore and the full price really would be huge for me!
 
Go for GIMP! www.macgimp.org
You can download it free, it has curves, Channel mixer and most everything Photoshop full version can do. Good stuff, layers, light effects, grain etc.
www.gimp.org is the main site as GIMP comes in Windows, Mac and Linux.
The Mac version is free and I love it!
 
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Anyone who is even slightly interested in post processing will outgrow Elements in about two hours.
 
I recall having read somewhere that Adobe allow you one free switch in Operating System. Maybe just ask them whether thay would be willing to send you a mac version of your current version of Photoshop. Nothing ventured, nothing gained
 
Consider Picture Window Pro. When I got mine it was $95. One really neat feature is that you can resize many of the tool windows, e.g. curves, which gives you a much bigger and clear curve to work with. Also handles 16-bit TIFs.
 
I've used both and while Elements is nice, CS2 is the real thing, without essential bits missing. Adobe no longer gives a free op-system change, but they give a deep discount if you change licenses to another platform. I've been contemplating switching to Mac as well, and looked into it recently.
 
Elmer has it right!
Why settle for Elements when you can get the GIMP for free?
Plus you can make your own filters or find a whole lotta more

Elmer Fishpaw said:
Go for GIMP! www.macgimp.org
You can download it free, it has curves, Channel mixer and most everything Photoshop full version can do. Good stuff, layers, light effects, grain etc.
www.gimp.org is the main site as GIMP comes in Windows, Mac and Linux.
The Mac version is free and I love it!
Click to expand...
 
How does Gimp handle colour managment? Given Thorsten's question about profiles and printing I think this is quite important for him.

Steve
 
I just switched to Elements 4 on Mac (from Elements 2). Main reason to switch was lack of 16-bit color depth. Gimp does not offer this and I could not understand how gimp handled color management (if at all).

I have not been all that serious so I have not really outgrown Elements. I wish for the channel mixer, but I think I can get around without curves.

I tried a 6x7 16 bit scan from my KM Scan Multi pro, it was 800MB and working with it was rather sluggish on my dual 2GHz G5 with 2.5GB. So I hope I will not find myself doing it often. The only thing I can do at the moment is to populate one empty memory slot, but I will probably not make a big difference.

On Mac Elements 2 and 4 (have not tried 3) it is possible to select print profile in the print preview dialog and then to select the desired printer (driver) in the printer dialog.

/Håkan
 
I just shelled out for CS2 for Mac, but I get educational pricing. If I'd had to pay full retail price I would have limped along with Elements (I have the old version, 2.0 for Mac) or used Gimp.

That said, it was still a painful purchase money-wise, but I'm not sorry I did it.
 
How about buying an older full PS version (e.g 6) and an upgrade to CS2? Done this - less than 400 Euro. I've tried Gimp before, but no 16bit support -> CinePaint does -> Scanning in 16bit, Cinepaint curves, further on in Gimp..

Btw. things like USM are unbelievable slow in both Gimp/CinePaint (on the G5 Mac at least). CinePaint won't allow a wide radius for USM (for 'local contrast enhancement'), but this should be done before curves.. Argh. Both have rather uncommon UI (Gimp like 'current' X11 apps, CinePaint like 10 years ago). Both lack (real) alternatives for the 'healing brush' which is like magic if you have to touch up scanned B/W film.

IMHO: if you can spend the money than go for CS2. Money better spent than for e.g. Coolscan V vs 5000

Regards, Robert

Edit: Just one more thing, Thorsten: in case you have an Intel based Mac, it might be a good idea (before buying CS2) to check out when the next update (CS3, I guess) is planned to be released - since there will be no 'native Intel' CS2 AFAIK
 
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