Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 - Old Version

5 star:		(84)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

I have purchased and used every version of Adobe Photoshop Elements since the product was first released - and most recently I upgraded to Photoshop Elements 5.O. I read another review posted here on Amazon in which the reviewer states that a lot of important features are missing from this newest version. Specifically, he says that Elements 5.0 omits two important features - selection brushes and sharpening filters. That is just not true. These features are in the new 5.0 version, so I'm not sure why the reviewer would have said that (unless he is not really familiar with this product).

In my opinion, this is the BEST editing software on the market for the money. I don't know of any other product that offers anywhere near power or flexibility for a similar price. I think the upgrade to Elements 5.0 is worth it - "color curves" are a great new feature, as are the new artwork and effects that were added to this version. These are a lot of fun and very useful particularly if you enjoy creating scrapbooks.

And yes, despite what the prior reviewer says - you CAN adjust the color curve in the Elements 5.0. You may not be able to adjust them to the extent that you can if you were using Photoshop CS2 - but then Photoshop CS2 costs about $500 more than Photoshop Elements 5.0. Besides, its a lot easier to learn how to use color curve in Elements.

I know that many people rely on reviews here at Amazon to help them decide whether to buy a product - I know that I do. I think it is unfortunate that an earlier reviewer made claims about this product that are just plain wrong. I encourage anyone considering Elements 5.0 to research the product and not be mislead by inaccurate information as to its content. Personally, I am very happy with it and I do recommend it.

Roberta

I am a huge fan of Adobe Photoshop Elements from the get-go. I've had every version or nearly so since its inception. Designed as a "cut-down" version of Photoshop, the granddaddy of digital image manipulation software, Photoshop Elements is aptly named; it has the elements of Photoshop that most users need, but minus the extra bells and whistles that professional designers might require.

That power of course comes at a price; I found that my 3 year old HP Pavilion needed significant upgrades to run version 5.0. Slow to do graphics in any case, due to onboard Nvidia graphics chips, I added a separate graphics card (a reasonably inexpensive one) and some additional memory since my computer was underpowered in that regard as well. The addition to 1GByte of RAM and the dedicated graphics card made loading and running Photoshop Elements 5.0 possible. It went from molasses and swearing a lot to slick as a cat's hindquarters.

So: Lesson #1--if your computer doesn't have a dedicated graphics card and is underpowered in RAM, consider upgrading or replacing a superannuated model. Ask your local computer guru if you are unsure.

Now, down to the improvements in the software.

1. Enhanced conversion to black & white from color. While "remove color" and sepia (or any) toning was always available, there is now a set function to create black & white from your color digital photo. I use this a lot. As a former person who did her own B&W in the darkroom as a kid, I have of course no time as an adult to process film and Heaven knows printing one print can take hours. I created a handsome photo of some wicker chairs on an old porch in record time with this feature.

2. You can delight your kids (or yourself) by making photo flipbooks--the precursor to movies. Fun and educational. A lovely little feature for homeschoolers and kids' activities.

3. More options for fancy frames, collages. This is in answer to the scrapbooking craze. There are many more ways to make enhanced pictures and photos for digital printing to cards, scrapbook or just to email to friends. Photoshop Elements also has an array of filters that let you make web thingies like glassy buttons and neon highlighted lettering for designing your home web page.

4. As in PSE 4 and 3, you have the option to go from camera download to quick edit, without loading the full editing power of PSE. Organization of the photos and videos has been greatly enhanced in version 5.0

5. Along with organization, there is a new feature Map View which lets you tag your photos to where you took them. And you can share photos with some online features.

6. There are brushes that replicate natural surfaces, natural brushes, fancy shapes. You can create artwork with or without photos by chosing colors, gradients, and add text and create drop shadows, bevels, and other features. You can change photos to have artist effects like pastel strokes or oil daubs.

Downsides?

1. I mentioned the slowness of loading if your computer is underpowered. To give this version a fair test, I upgraded my computer and I recommend you have a minimum of 1GByte RAM and a separate graphics card unless you have a very new, very graphics-oriented PC.

2. If you are a current user of V. 3.0 or so, you may find it is hard to locate some features as they have been reorganized. I still find I have to re-learn how to do a few things because the menus have changed somewhat. The overall layout (drop menus and tabs in the tool sets) is the same.

Finally, the Five-Hundred Dollar Question: Do I need Photoshop or Photoshop Elements? Here's what is NOT available:

CMYK Mode (used for professional printing
LAB color modes
High-bit image tools.
Multiple exposure overlays (HDR)
Channels Palette
Keystroke macros (for repeat manipulations)
Color Balance, Match Color
Layer Masks, Layer Comps, and Quick Mask mode
Smart Objects
Smart Guides
Vanishing Point Tool
Certain adjustment layers such as color balance, curves, selective color, and channel mixer
A complete log of editing history (you can back up using Ctrl-Z but you can't record what you did for batch processing)
Some advanced text formatting and layer style manipulation
no Advanced Color Management, Advanced Web features or ImageReady features like image slice and image rollover (for web design)
Custom menus, setting, anything for batch processing of this sort


Bottom line: if you are a skilled web designer, intend to send images to professional printing or do high-output, repetitive tasks in Photoshop, you are a pro and need the full edition. For the rest of us, PSE 5.0 really does the job. Big thumbs up.

If you like digital photography, you should buy this product. I have used previous versions since the very first. Each upgrade makes the product better and easier to use. This revision improves the performance of the "magic wand" that can be used to isolate individual objects in the photo, and the handling of colors. The automatic red eye removal is a handy feature, although it is not 100% effective: sometimes you have to show the system where the red eye is. The Organizer is a great way to deal with the thousands of photos you are likely to have on your system after a while, but it does force you to plan ahead on how to catalog the photos. I find that the Date View works best for me, making it easy to find birthday and Thanksgiving photos of the family.

All in all, I highly recommend this product. If you are using a previous version, I recommend you upgrade to this one. You won't be sorry you did.

I was disappointed to spend so much on APE 5 and receive no hard copy manual in the box. I called Adobe customer support and was asked what size the box was and was then told that there is no hard copy manual with APE 5 that is sold by resellers. The rep I spoke with must be misinformed, as I know people who bought APE 5 from Best Buy and Costco and got the hard copy manual. I was told I could purchase the manual from Adobe for $20 plus applicable tax and shipping. I told them no thanks, I would buy a 3rd party book instead and ordered the 'Missing Manual' book. That's funny if you think about it. Besides the 38 page quick start guide, there IS a copy of the manual on the CD, so it isn't like there is no documentation at all. I find those hard to work from, and one can definitely not carry a copy around for reading while on breaks or waiting for appointments, but it is better than having none at all. However, if I had known a version was available with a hard copy manual, I would purchased that version instead. Lesson learned.

I miss the undo and redo buttons I had in version 3, but they may have thought those a little redundant since there is an undo history in the palette bin which serves the same purpose. As for the selection brush, it is still there, along with the magic selection brush. The sharpening tool and unsharp mask were moved (under Enhance instead of with the Filters) but they are still there too.

Digital scrappers should like this version with the new Artwork palette where backgrounds, frames, graphics and shapes are stored. I added some of my own artwork by putting it in subfolders here:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\5.0\Photo Creations\artwork

I don't have enough in there yet to know if it slows the program down and so far it hasn't caused any conflicts that I noticed.

Third party styles must be put here instead of the elements\presets\styles folder as in previous versions:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\5.0\Photo Creations\special effects\layer styles

Once restarted, Elements will rebuild the cache and your styles will show up. I found that putting them into several smaller subfolders worked best, ie: all the gold together, metals, cutouts, etc. but you can name and group them however you like. But you must create at least one folder with a name. Otherwise, they will all show up with the bevels.

There are some nice alignment tools added to this version. Layer styles can be edited more than in previous versions, shadows removed or the colors of the shadows changed quite easily within the styles editing box. I noticed that if I change the angle of a shadow on one layer, if there are shadows on other layers, they change so that they match.

That's all I can comment on right now as I have had this version only a few days. So far, so good, but I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 due to the lack of the hard copy manual in this package, and my not being thoroughly acquainted with this version yet.

I personally like this release of PSE. I was badly disappointed with 4.0 because it was a bit clunky. In this release Adobe fixed some of the bugs that were so annoying in PSE4, but in the process it must've added some new ones, because PSE5 eats memory and processor cycles for breakfast! I would discourage anyone with pc > 2 years old to buy this product: it will be VERY slow and will probably crash your machine if you do not have enough RAM (or it will hard-drive thrash like crazy!).

As for the features I like are the "Levels" and "Curves" though they use a different nomenclature (to differentiate with the PRO version) they offer very similar functionality. I own the pro version for my business, but I'll definitely be using this at home.

It's a good product, just don't expect it to be snappy unless you have very current hardware.

Buried down in the other user reviews is, I find, a wise one warning those with computers more than 2 years old to avoid this program. Perhaps a better way to put the warning (because although age alone might be a useful guide, it's not necessarily a guarantee of incompatibility), is to advise a CAREFUL EXAMINATION OF THE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS! Dazzled by the overall great reviews, I put this on my Christmas wish list. I couldn't wait to get it installed on Christmas morning! It seemed to install just fine, but then the honeymoon was over. After installing, my computer (yes, mine is more than 2 years old, with XP and an early Pentium 4) ran slower than molasses on a cold winter morning. Parts of the program worked, but it kept stalling, requiring restarts every time. The function of other programs was affected. I tried a reinstall, but things got worse. Finally got it off the machine (Add/Delete Programs wouldn't even start at one point!!).

Well, when all else fails, read the fine print! I'm sure this is as great a program as all the reviewers with machines that meet the program's needs say, but if you're interested in it, I strongly recommend that you click on the link for "additional requirements" up above on the page under product description. If yours doesn't meet them, you may want to think twice, based on my experience and that of the other reviewer.

I'll freely blame myself for not paying closer attention to the requirements, and I did successfully uninstall it, but I am disappointed that upon install the program itself didn't pop up a warning that my system didn't meet those requirements.

For now, I'm hoping that my one star rating, given because its utility seems to be limited to newer, obviously more capable machines than mine, will be "temporary." Being limited to, by and large, newer machines is a bit disappointing, though understandable; that's progress. I'll eagerly await my new machine and store the CD away for a couple months (need a new one, anyway!). Hopefully I'll be able to update this review and give as good a rating as so many others. If you have an older machine, take heed and save yourself some frustration!

I currently have PSE 2.0, and downloaded 5.0 to try it out. So far, it's an excellent product and is worth the cost of upgrading. Some of the great new features (which may have been in versions 3 and 4) are the cookie cutter, frames, and THANKFULLY, strokes! I was very disappointed that 2.0 did not allow you to draw strokes around objects, but 5.0 has this. This version also gives you much more control over layer styles as well as more style, theme, and other artistic options. My only caveat to you is that you should have a lot of memory. Even with 1GB of RAM, the program can be slow to respond at times.

As a professional user of Adobe's Creative Suite 2, I expected Photoshop Elements to be like most basic digital photo programs. What a delightful surprise to find I was quite wrong! About 97% of the things I do with the Photoshop CS2 program can just as easily be done with Photoshop Elements.

One real real bonus of learning Photoshop Elements is that the tools and techniques the program offers can be easily translated to the professional version of Photoshop if one chooses to upgrade. While Elements 5.0 has more bells and whistles than the earlier versions, I personally would not go to the expense of the newer one. An older version (2.0) which came with my digital camera works wonderfully well on my PC laptop and the files are easily transferred to my Mac system for use in Illustrator, InDesign, or even Photoshop CS2.

Joel B Reed, photographer and author of Ravenwolf and Lakota Spring.
See the photo gallery at WhiteTurtleBooks.

I like the upgrade (I had version 2 and version 4 before). From a digital scrapbooking point of view, this version is far superior to other versions with the possible exception of the removal of the undo button (I use the shortcut anyway.) The art palette is a great time saver and the new frames option is a treat...I love the poloroid frame and the slide frame.

There are background papers and elements available in the palette, also.

I also like the new way of viewing stacks in the organizer. I can actually view what's in the stack without leaving the main organizer screen or having to go through a whole bunch of clicking around or unstacking/restacking. Just click the arrow on the stack and it unstacks in the main organizer. When you are done, click the reverse arrow and it restacks. Easy peasy.

I would recommend this version, but like all versions it's helpful to buy a manual. I use Photoshop Elements 5, The Missing Manual, by Barbara Brundage. Very useful.

I have used 3 different photo editing software and they did basis fixes adequately, on the other hand Photoshop Elements 5.0 out did the same things and more at a far better quality. I decided to use the trial when restoring 40 year old baby pictures and then after 7 days of a 30 day trial the software was purchased. The Photoshop Elements has allowed me to remove heavy yellow ageing cast, repair torn areas, scratches and faded color. The process was easy and clearly explained when I needed help. It takes patients (not included in box) and tinkering to get the proper look, but it can be done.
I'm adding the following Information because I was not sure if is was an add on to Photoshop or a stand alone application.
You should be aware that Photoshop Elements will work without the much more expensive Photoshop, I believe that is geared to professional users