Adobe's laying on the Web subscription message thick in the newest versions of Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements. For example the Welcome screen, which is your first encounter with either one of the applications, has completely changed. The standard options of Organize, Edit, Create, and Share get relegated to a task bar that's somewhat unremarkable compared to the large, rotating slide show heralding the many benefits of the free and $49.99 Plus memberships for Photoshop.com (20GB-plus of storage space, remote backup, and project templates). It's honestly couldn't be any more annoying than those pop-up ads you get when your browser is infecte4d. It is really a shame since Photoshop Elements is a great middle of the road photo editor; regrettably all of these bells and whistles detract from the foundation that made it so popular.
The main advantage to Elements 7 is that it costs less than Photoshop and Lightroom, yet is powerful enough for most photo editing tasks. As a result, the enhanced raw workflow is quite improved; you now can bypass it entirely if you want. For example, in order to create a slide show of NEF files, the program simply applies the default raw-processing settings and treats them like JPEGs.
There is also a new text search box in the organizer, which is a fast, easy way to filter by keywords or basic metadata. Be warned however that it is very basic metadata only; you can only search on time, data, camera, and caption text. But that should be sufficient for basic home users.
Of course, there has to be at least one whizzy feature per version, and this one has the Photomerge Scene Cleaner, an extension of Group Shot. It allows you to seamlessly combine variations of a photo to eliminate unwanted objects in the scene. Features like this never work for me immediately; this one did, on two random photos (which met the similarity criteria). I haven't tried the other variations, Photomerge Faces, or Panorama--but those are derivative of existing Photoshop CS3 tools.
Adobe has also streamlined adjustment operations with Smart Brushes, which consolidate multi-operation adjustments, such as selecting then creating a new effects layer, into a single selection operation that automatically generates the layer and mask.
Unfortunately, even with all the new bells and whistles, I can't get around how confusing the user interface is; I think the main reason is that everything seems organized by technology, rather than by task. A hodgepodge of stuff lives on the Guided palette, some of which you can't find elsewhere in the program, like the Photomerge tools, or which don't seem guiding at all, like the Saturated Slide Film effect or the Action Player. The latter runs scripts that request user input, which is why I suspect they're considered Guided, but in that respect they're no different than dialog boxes or Wizards. Before and after views are still only available in Quick Fix and Guided modes. I just can't remember where to find things a lot of the time.
Unfortunately the things I want changed usually never change prior to the product shipping. Things that I am guessing will improve are the performance (the beta version is slow) and the selection of presets, actions, and templates (they're pretty thin). Believe me, when the product ships the end of September I will definitely be checking to see if there are any pleasant surprises. Price is expected to be in the range of $79.99 or $99.99, depending on if you buy it via the Adobe store and/or believe in mail-in rebates. Add $40 for the plus-membership option. - 15437
The main advantage to Elements 7 is that it costs less than Photoshop and Lightroom, yet is powerful enough for most photo editing tasks. As a result, the enhanced raw workflow is quite improved; you now can bypass it entirely if you want. For example, in order to create a slide show of NEF files, the program simply applies the default raw-processing settings and treats them like JPEGs.
There is also a new text search box in the organizer, which is a fast, easy way to filter by keywords or basic metadata. Be warned however that it is very basic metadata only; you can only search on time, data, camera, and caption text. But that should be sufficient for basic home users.
Of course, there has to be at least one whizzy feature per version, and this one has the Photomerge Scene Cleaner, an extension of Group Shot. It allows you to seamlessly combine variations of a photo to eliminate unwanted objects in the scene. Features like this never work for me immediately; this one did, on two random photos (which met the similarity criteria). I haven't tried the other variations, Photomerge Faces, or Panorama--but those are derivative of existing Photoshop CS3 tools.
Adobe has also streamlined adjustment operations with Smart Brushes, which consolidate multi-operation adjustments, such as selecting then creating a new effects layer, into a single selection operation that automatically generates the layer and mask.
Unfortunately, even with all the new bells and whistles, I can't get around how confusing the user interface is; I think the main reason is that everything seems organized by technology, rather than by task. A hodgepodge of stuff lives on the Guided palette, some of which you can't find elsewhere in the program, like the Photomerge tools, or which don't seem guiding at all, like the Saturated Slide Film effect or the Action Player. The latter runs scripts that request user input, which is why I suspect they're considered Guided, but in that respect they're no different than dialog boxes or Wizards. Before and after views are still only available in Quick Fix and Guided modes. I just can't remember where to find things a lot of the time.
Unfortunately the things I want changed usually never change prior to the product shipping. Things that I am guessing will improve are the performance (the beta version is slow) and the selection of presets, actions, and templates (they're pretty thin). Believe me, when the product ships the end of September I will definitely be checking to see if there are any pleasant surprises. Price is expected to be in the range of $79.99 or $99.99, depending on if you buy it via the Adobe store and/or believe in mail-in rebates. Add $40 for the plus-membership option. - 15437
About the Author:
Did you like this article? Curious about learning photoshop elements fast? Well now you can by getting this free report...what are you waiting for?
