Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

This product finally gets it right. From start to finish, it really works.

Connect a camera or card reader, and it automatically finds it and imports your photos. Then do a quick review using your full-screen so you can really see the image, not just thumbnails. Cull out the lame photos really fast, then tag the ones you want to keep. Even hit Ctrl-1 through 5 to put 1-5 stars on an image.

Then once you have your best shots, use the cool "smart fix" tool to do some amazing stuff to fix the exposure and colors in just one click....much smarter than the other products I've tried (and I've tried a lot over the last 3 months, including microsoft's and magix and ulead and nero....etc.)

Then use the one-click redeye remover to click near an eye and have the redeye automagically removed. It really works! Cool!

Use the Healing Brush to remove blemishes and paint out annoying details (like the cars in the background, or a blemish on someone's forehead) without having to know anything special or hold down a control-shift-alt key combination.

Wonderful organization tools, plus the world's best image editing, all packaged in a UI that starts simple and builds as you explore it.

Adobe really got this one right. Don't bother looking at the other packages (lord knows I spent enough time for us all. :)

I knew it would happen.....the healing brush hits Elements 3.0! Great addition to a good program. Can the channel mixer be far behind? Probably....if Adobe adds that and curves, there may not be a reason to get the full-blown Photoshop for most people. I do photography professionally and most of my stuff is done in Photoshop CS, but this is a great backup program. There are some things in here that I don't use, but they're handy for the average digital image taker. I'm not wild about the incorporation of Photoshop Album into this, but again, it has some useful features that the market this program is geared to will find nice to have. The better option would have been to allow this to be a separate installation. I have a file management program that I like that will allow me to open any file in whatever program I choose, so I don't need the file management part of Elements 3.

All in all this is a great program that can do a lot of serious stuff if you take the time to learn it. To the gentleman that said in his review that there was no full-screen because there's tools all over the place cluttering things up....well, do your homework. There is full-screen, and if the tools get in your way, try hitting the tab key. I'll bet you'll see the tool bars go away. Hit tab again, they're back. That's one great thing about Photoshop....lots of keyboard shortcuts to do all sorts of things.

If you're debating new imaging software, give this a try. It's all-encompassing for the average shooter, and you can do just about anything you need to with your images.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 was a tremendous breakthrough for the casual digital image enthusiast. With a huge portion of Adobe Photoshop's functionality, it was for the average photographer all the program he or she would need. The weakest part was it's photo browsing and library management. These failings were addressed with the release of an ancillary program, Adobe Photoshop Album. While not to everyone's liking, Photoshop Album was powerful and very well designed, and together with Elements made a comprehensive set.

With the release of Adobe Photoshop Elements 3, Adobe has pulled a fast one on its customers. Instead of adding significant functionality to PE, it has given it lots of what programmers call "chrome" - the shiny bits of the user interface. It has merged in the features of Photoshop Album, but this is useful only to those who don't already have Photoshop Album.

For your money, the upgrade to Photoshop Elements 3 offers, essentially, one new tool: The healing brush introduced in Photoshop 7. While the healing brush sounds great, I found it to be inferior to careful use of the 'good old' clone stamp tool.

Given that I was not won over by Photoshop Album, was unimpressed by the healing brush, and don't care much about chrome, I found the net advantage in this upgrade to be nil.

On the downside, however, users get plenty. For one thing, each time you want to edit a photo (Photoshop Elements) or work with a library of photos (Photoshop Album), you must load both programs. Remember, in version 3 they have been combined. It would not be accurate to say this adds twice the load time and overhead; it seems to have added more than that. Photoshop Elements 3 is slow where 2 was fast, bloated where its predecessor was lean. It is, however, very, very shiny.

I have tried Photoshop Elements 2 and 3, Photoshop Album, and Photoshop 7. Having tried all these, I now use Photoshop Elements 2. For managing my library I rely on ACD System's ACDSee, far faster and more flexible than Photoshop Album.

I can't recommend this upgrade; it offers almost no real new features, and the addition of Photoshop Album is only of interest to Photoshop Album fans. The programmers at Adobe must have been working on other projects; this upgrade seems to be the work of the marketing department.

Having used the full-power version of Photoshop for quite a few years now, this version interested me because my husband has taken up digital photography. He needed something to help him organize photos and he wanted something that would let him play around a little with the images. Elements succeeds for him on both counts.

I found it somewhat difficult to work backward from Photoshop CS to the more limited capabilities of Elements, but what I see here is not too different from early versions of "full" Photoshop. It's plenty of zoom for what anyone other than a professional needs. For this reason alone, I give it five stars. It is simply the best available; its price/performance ratio is unmatched.

That said, keep in mind one important point. This is not a particularly intuitive product. Although you'll pick up a little just by dinging around with an open document, you will not begin to approach using the program effectively unless you are prepared to look at the manual. Probably, in fact, you will want one of the books available on the topic. But with just a bit of study and practice you will have at your fingertips a strong, versatile tool for working with digital images -- ANY digital images: your own photography or other illustrations that you create or import.

Study and practice may sound like tall orders, but consider that many of us apply the same principles to various computer games. Apply them to Elements, as my husband has, and you will generate results to be proud of.

I am a new user of Adobe Photoshop and researched heavily before I purchased. I agree that there is a learning curve, but the results are worth it.
Strengths:
1. EXCELLENT photoediting. Handles lighting and color problems superbly and you can enhance portraits to make any subject look great. You have the choice of "quick fix" or step-wise corrections with the standard editor. I cannot overemphasize how powerful the editing tools are: you can make bad photos good and good photos look great.
2. Easily keep track of photos and organize them by subject/theme, date, etc.
3. All-in-one program that will meet the needs of most non-professional consumers.
4. Sharing: program automatically compresses your photo for emailing and the email layouts look great. Other templates are available to make cards, calendars, etc.
Cons:
1. If you are new to the Photoshop products I would highly recommend purchasing a book (I love Scott Kelby's book specifically for Elements 3.0). The Adobe manual gives you an aerial view of the program, but that's it. The built-in tutorials are helpful, but any newbie should get a book to unleash the vast potential of the program. I got very good results "winging it", but to fully use the program some extra help is needed.
2. It's not the quickest program to load (Windows XP), but that depends on the capacity of your computer system.
OVERALL: I am THRILLED with the results and find they justify my time learning the program. The only reason I knocked off one star is because of the learning curve.

I purchased this product three days ago for $99.99. After installing it, I imported all of my photos to start the organizing process. At first I loved how easy it was to use. Then...it happened. I started coming across pictures that were blurry beyond recognition. These were pictures that open in other programs (Microsoft picture viewer, picasa, and HP image zone) without ANY problems. After hunting around on the internet, I found a toll free customer support # (there wasn't one included at all with the product). When I called the "tech support" #, the gentleman that I spoke to told me that the problem I was having was well above his realm of expertise, and he gave me another # out of Washington State that I could call (not toll free). When I called them, they asked if I was enrolled on one of their "plans". I told them that I was not and that I just purchased the product and just wanted to know if there was a way to fix the problem that I was having. I was told that if I wanted to talk to a tech, that I would have to give them a credit card # and that I would be charged $39 if the tech determined that the problem that I was having was anything other then a defective installation disc. This quote comes directly from the adobe web site, "If you need one-issue access to an Adobe Expert Support specialist, you can pay for a single incident. Calling about a single incident lets you experience the how-to-help and convenient hours of Expert Support for US$39 per call." Long story short (too late, I know), I will never again purchase any products from adobe.

I recently purchased Photoshop Elements 3.0 after being a user of 2.0 for over two years. I have to say I was pretty disappointed in the new version. My reaction was "I paid $50 (after the rebates) for this?" But to be fair, I have to say from the start that Photoshop CS would probably be better suited for me, if I was rich and had $600 to spend.

My first disappointment is that the new version was advertised as providing 16-bit support for images. In fact, this was probably 90% of my reason for buying it. Well, that isn't totally true. It does support 16-bit images, but only under the image enhance menu. It doesn't provide 16-bit support in layers. In order to use layers you first have to convert the image to an 8-bit image. That means the only way to edit 16-bit images is to permanently change the image.

My second disappointment is that somehow I got the impression that the levels tool now displayed all three channels together as in Photoshop CS. Maybe I got this impression because in the ads they show the raw data format with the levels in three colors and I just assumed it would be in the normal levels dialog. Either way, it's the same levels command as in previous versions.

My last complaint has to do with how Elements now handles multiple images in the editor. It used to be that if you brought in multiple images the title bar would turn blue for the image you were editing so if was obvious which image was active. Now the title bar remains gray for all images and you are never quite sure which image you are editing. The only way to know for sure is to minimize the other images. This is very annoying. In fact, for this reason alone I find myself reverting back to the previous version of Elements and only using the new version when it has a feature I need.

Having said all that, there are some new features that I do like. For starters, although I would prefer to have 16-bit support in layers, having that feature in the enhance menu is better than nothing and actually is similar to how Photoshop 7 worked. Also, the healing brush, filters and the shadow recovery features are nice. I especially am glad to see that the filters can be included as a layer so the image isn't directly modified.

Although most of the reviews of Elements 3.0 are positive, the minority of negative reviews here seem to be unfair criticisms either from people who are disappointed that Elements (which sells for $60) is scaled down from Photoshop CS (which sells for $600) or people who think Elements is too complicated. I personally think Adobe solved the Goldilocks problem and Elements is just right, especially for the money! It delivers lots of editing and organizing power but is simple enough to use if you invest 10 minutes in reading a manual or watching the enclosed DVD.
The most wrong-headed criticisms are those that claim Elements 2 was better than 3. Wrong! The newer version adds lots of editing tools and makes them easier to use. And the Organizer can't be beat. After reading some of the negative reviews, I put off upgrading for several months. What a waste of time! I experimented with several different programs and none approaches Elements for ease of use, power and value.

I have been using Microsoft Picture It, PhotoImpressions, and other software for photo editing and decided to "upgrade" my digital picture editing abilities and bought Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0. From reading all the raves about this product, I was eager to give it a try.

I am disappointed. I installed PS Elements on my computer and began to try to use it. Then I realized, "Hey, there's not a user's manual in the box." It is extremely frustrating trying to figure out how to use a complicated, multifaceted program such as PS Elements without a user's manual. The Help portion of the program is not very helpful unless you already know how to use Adobe's Photoshop products.

I spent (...) for PS Elements 3.0 and now I must fork out more money (...) to buy a book to learn how to use it. Adobe should include a user's manual with the software(...).

After spending about 4 hours editing a photo with PS Elements, I compared it to the one I had edited with MS Picture It. The MS Picture It photo looked just as good if not better, and it certainly did not take 4 hours to do.

In PS Elements, I was constantly having to move the sliders to view the palettes on the right side of the screen. The Help instructions say do this, and I find it to be very annoying.

If you are new to Adobe Photoshop products, be prepared to spend alot of time and more $$$ learning how to use it.

This review is written mostly for those who have been using Photoshop Elements 2.0 and are considering moving up to 3.0

I have been a long time Photoshop user (starting with something like 3.0) and have been using Photoshop Elements 2.0 since it came out a year and half ago. 2.0 was an efficient "lean machine". It can't do everything the full Photoshop can do, but for the average user, it is more than sufficient.

After I read some magazine reviews of 3.0, I decided to purchase it. But I am very disappointed with 3.0. It is a MUCH bigger program. It feels "clunky"--the organizer and the editor are two separate programs (and the calender/card creator is yet another program).

In 2.0, the photobrowser takes up most of the screen. In 3.0, it takes up about 1/4 of the screen--one can narrow the other windows, but can't really close them off to make room for the browser. For people who use the photobrowser frequently in 2.0, this can be very annoying.

3.0's new "tag" and "collection" features, which is supposed to make keeping track of photos easier, are part of the organizer program, not the editor. One cannot use the "tag" feature in the editor to find a tagged file.

Also, because the editor and organizer are not integrated at all, in order for files to be tagged and put into collections, one has to "import" one's image files into photoshop. Although this simply means that Photoshop needs to know where one's image files are (and no files are duplicated), it seems rather cumbersome that one has to go through all of one's files and import them all before tagging any of them. It would be vastly more convenient if one can do it all in the photobrowser.


Just my 2c.