Home > Consumer Reviews > Adobe Elements 2.0 [OLD VERSION]

This product is not for the beginner. Some experience is required or the patience to learn through studing the manual which comes with the program. It has met my needs by giving me the tools required to fine tune my out of focus photos. By use of the selection tool and layering, my photos are of a much higher quality than I have found with other programs, and I have used many. Don't get discouraged, once mastered the rewards will be worth it! For those who are not ready for Photoshop 7.0 but would like to try a program with the elements of it, this is it.

That may be a statement open to debate, since everybody's software seems to do so much nowadays. But I'm commenting from experience of Photoshop 5.0, which wasn't that long ago, and Photoshop LE, Elements' precursor.

Elements 2.0 is about as much Photoshop as most people would require. It is now able to create .PDF files for use in the Acrobat Reader, and has many simply executed commands for effects and touch-ups for the newbie. But after a while, the user would want to get into the more sophisticated options available by way of the Enhance tab. The two most useful are to be found at: Enhance > Adjust Brightness/Contrast > Levels - Crtl+L and, Enhance > Adjust Color > Hue & Saturation - Ctrl+U .

They would also want to go: Edit > Preferences > General , and uncheck the Export to Clipboard box. Uncheck the Backwards Compatibility box in the Save As section. And - if they have more than one partition - select one of the others for Scratch Disk use. This will avoid hanging the computer and keep file sizes much tighter.

The Window > Undo History is such a great feature, as it allows the user to step back along a path of work if they have made a number of mistakes, or simply want to compare pre and post results.

Unlike Photoshop LE, Elements is pretty demanding of computer resources, so the user's machine would need to be in good order and have a CPU in excess of 400Mhz to avoid slow launching of the application. Also, the installation might need some consideration via the Custom install if disk space is limited. Still doesn't directly integrate with Acrobat for editing an image by using Ctrl and double clicking with the touch-up object tool. You still need the full Photoshop for that. Not something that many will miss ;-)

Photoshop Elements is THE only photo editing software for beginners and intermediates. The learning curve starts out slow but within a short time, you will realize the great potential that this software offers. Missing only a few professional tools of Photoshop 7.0, Elements enables the casual user to enhance and customize photos. I would also recommend purchasing a "how to" book with elements to speed up the learning curve.

Adobe Photoshop Elements can be used for simple editing or major reconstruction of image files. There is a lot of things it can do so therefore it takes some time to learn its capabilities. Rebate from Adobe is for upgraders only so be aware of that. Some better scanners and printers come with elements so if your in the market for one of those items as well might check to see if you can get it free. Don't know if it will be right for you? Go to Adobe's web site and download the trial version first. They have on-line tutorials as well. You are allowed to install this product on two machines as long as they are both used by you and not another person. This is good software at a good price.

I am transitioning from beginner to novice with digital imaging and hope my observations will help readers who are just starting out, as I was a year ago. At that time I researched some of the leading affordable digital imaging programs and narrowed it down to Elements and MS Digital Pro. Largely because of other reviews at this site, I decided to purchase Elements. If you are a beginner, no doubt you have read conflicting observations of the user-friendliness of Elements from other reviewers. Some say its a breeze to learn, while other had difficulty learning the program. My experience was such that I found the interface confusing and not very user friendly. I was spending a lot of time referring to the manual to familiarize myself with basic tasks, and became frustrated everytime I used the program for about the first 6 months. However, I learned this was due to my unfamiliarity with Adobe products rather than any shortcomings of Elements itself. So recommendation #1: If you have never used Adobe products and are a beginner to digital imaging, you may want to try MS Digital Image Pro to get you acquainted with digital imaging. I purchased the program in Dec '03 and found it to be a much more pleasurable and productive experience as I acquired the fundamentals. This program has an interface that is much more user-friendly, and tasks are completed through an activity-guided process which is really hard to mess up. Nor do you need to familiarize yourself with DOS commands to perform some of the advanced features, and you won't be spending as much time (if any) referring to a manual, unlike Elements. Now having said that, if you are the adventureous type you will likely outgrow Digital Image Pro one day as your skills evolve, and will be ready to take the affordable plunge into the Adobe world of advanced digital imaging, which is where Elements comes in. Its at this point I defer to the other reviewers who have already said it all about Elements, except for one important point. Recommendation #2: If you do decide to purchase Elements, consider buying an Epson scanner, such as the 2400 model, which at the the time of this review, will cost you $129 through Amazon and will include Adobe Elements as the bundled digital imaging software. I wish I had known about that a year ago.