Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(33)

 

 

I installed this Adobe bundle on a brand new HP PC with a Intel 2 Quad processor and Windows 7, and, while I love Photoshop and some of the upgraded features, Premiere crashed twice the first time I used it and took forever to process. (More on preventing crashes later.) Photoshop is a must-have program. Premiere is a basic, no-frills program with some major issues, designed for composing movies out of digital video clips and still photos.

First, Photoshop: Photoshop Elements remains one of the most powerful image processors for the non-professional user. From special effects to simply improving the look of standard photos, the software can manipulate photos in almost any way you can imagine. Out of the newest features, the most interesting are recomposition tools, size presets, and facial recognition. In the first, the user can unlock the background from the foreground and bring foreground images closer or farther from one another, and can even remove unsightly objects from the photo altogether. With protect and remove brushes, you can even erase your ex from that family photo and bring everyone closer together to fill the empty space. Facial recognition, while quirky at times, works so you can quickly extract all the photos of an individual from your library -- say, you want to delete every photo that contains your ex or print them out for dartboards, and so you call them up to see them all at once. The quirky part comes when the software recognizes that a bird or a gorilla is not a person, but then asks "Who's this?" while pointing to a flower stalk or a print on someone's dress. The facial recognition feature works best if you take the time to fill out names on many photos. Eventually, it recognizes certain people, with or without sunglasses, in profile or full face. The size presets are the most practical improvement, as you can size your photos to standard sizes -- say, 4x 6 or 8x 10 -- simply by pulling down a window and selecting.

Now, Premiere: If you are just starting out or don't want to produce movies with a lot of editing and features, Premiere is an okay program, especially if you are buying Photoshop anyway. Those of us who have used Macs and its iMovie program will find this program comparable to what Apple was producing three years ago -- and that should tell PC users how behind Premiere is. The interface is somewhat clunky, and it lacks intuitive editing controls. You can drag and drop clips from your organized media center, add titles, adjust transitions, and use themed templates. The biggest problem comes with frequent crashes when the program simply fails to respond during an operation. Originally, I didn't install the content disk because I wasn't interested in all those templates; however, as soon as I did, the crashes became less frequent. If you plan on doing minimal video work at a leisurely pace, this program should be good enough for your needs. Otherwise . . . well, you might want to use Photoshop's remove brush to cut it out of your picture.

For any digital photographer and PC user, Photoshop is a must-have program. Premiere is another matter; it will frustrate anyone expecting a program as powerful as Photoshop. Take serious stock of your needs before you buy these two programs as a bundle.

NOTE: Because I used this with Windows 7, I cannot say how it works with earlier versions of Windows.

-- Debbie Lee Wesslmann

Revised 09/23/2010
Adobe relesed Premiere Elements 9 today, as this writting I have found none of the conflicts and problems that were present in PE8. Don't even think of purchasing PE8, Adobe never revised it throughout it's production run, all copies have the conflict and other performance issues. I do however believe that the issues have been resolved with Premiere Elements 9. Adobe should have publicly acknowledged PE8's problems rather than pretending it was a stable product, this is textbook case of how not to handle a difficult situation. Shamefull behavior Adobe, very, very weak.

Revised 06/03/2010
Premiere Elements/Photoshop 8 has serious problems that render it useless to a majority of users. Initially problems were traced to conflicts with Realtek Audio and Nvidia graphics card installation software, now users with other hardware configurations are also reporting frequent crashes and stability issues with the PE/PSE 8 bundle. These type of conflicts should have been sorted out by Adobe in beta testing before the product was shipped, unfortunately as of this date, a fix has not yet been found. Be prepared to get under the hood of your PC for many hours of "quality time" to install new drivers,regedit, employ multiple workarounds and endless online "help" from India. Avoid this software if you use Nvidia graphics drivers or AVCHD 1080 video format. Beware reviewers giving this software bundle high marks, most are basing their reviews solely on Photoshop Elements and ignoring Premiere Elements 8 and it's numberous stability problems. Adobe has been actively soliciting professional authors to write favorable reviews to offset real reviews made by actual paying not "compensated" customers.

Adobe released a patch 8.01 (02/26/2010) for Premiere Elments 8, users are reporting that stability is somewhat improved but still fails to live up to Adobe's advertising and the quality of Photoshop Elements 8. No measurable improvement in speed or compatibility with AVCHD format or 1080 HD video.

Download the free 30 day trial version from Adobe to test compatibility with your PC before purchasing this product or wait untill Adobe releases newer version to solve the stability issues many are experiencing. You may also wish to try PE7 which has very good stability and isn't bloated with marketing gimmicks and useless "new features" of PE8.
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I received my copy of Premiere Elements 8 and Photoshop Elements 8 today. Installation was fairly easy with both programs but I can't see any improvements over PE7 unless you consider being even more resource dependent an improvement. The one feature that I was really hoping for in this version continues to be absent, PE 8 cannot write Blu-Ray format to a file, disk only. The conversion of videos from PE7 to PE8 also caused problems with several scenes skipping frames, dropping sound and repeatedly hanging the program during rendering of a four minute video. I have to reboot my computer frequently as the software will refuse to re-open after being used. I have a one month old Intel I7 running Win7 64 with twelve gig of ram, what does it take to satisfy PE8? If you have an AVCHD video camera do not buy this product, try Sony Vegas or another editing package that is compatible with that format. The very few people that have reported success with PE8 are not using HD and are editing very brief lower resolution videos. This software may work on a thirty second low resolution YouTube video but it most definitely is not suitable for a twenty minute HD event. Photoshop Elements 8 is a slight improvement over version 7 if you discount the image organizer which I found to be useless and slowed my system with its background processing. I would recommend buying Photoshop Elements 8 as a standalone but would pass on the bundle because of Premiere Elements 8 shortcomings.

I recommend that all users of the Elements 7 bundle skip this upgrade as it offers nothing in usefull functionality or performance. I honestly don't see how Adobe can justify calling PE8 an "upgrade", it is simply destabilized PE7 in a new box. The best feature is that PE8 does not overwrite PE7 so you will still be able to access and edit your PE7 videos which PE8 refuses to update or edit. Save your rupees for PE 9, 10, or 11, that may offer improvements over PE7... PE8 is the upgrade that never was.
Bad Software: What to Do When Software Fails

Purchased Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8 to run on a custom built high end computer designed specifically to handle the performance demands of video editing. This suite of programs is a total and complete waste of money. Slow and buggy does not begin to describe. Should you be wondering, the computer system in question is running Vista 64 (though the program is designed for a 32 bit operating system, 64 bit is supposedly "no problem" according to Adobe tech support) on the latest multi core Intel CPU on an Asus motherboard with 12 Gigabytes of Ram, two 10,000 rpm hard drives, top end video card, etc., etc. All drivers are up to date and everything else on the system works flawlessly.

I am incredibly disappointed and since the software has been opened and I cannot return, I'm out the $144. We had several annoying problems with an earlier edition of Adobe elements (number 3 I believe) but always chalked it up to a less than adequate computer. Simply not the case this time around. No more Adobe products for me or my business if I can help it. I would strongly suggest looking at other offerings for your video editing needs.

I have had home-grade video editing programs for years, mostly Pinnacle. I finally got sick of wearing out cordless-phone batteries waiting to talk to somebody in support, after all else failed on the last upgrade I did with them. I looked around for a new video-editing program.

I have had the higher-end Adobe stuff for years, I have CS2 and love it. I was thrilled to see the Premier 8 at a very affordable price.

This program is a total trainwreck. I'm sure it will create wonderful video, but not in my lifetime, it takes too much time to reboot after numerous crashes.

I read one review that said it wouldn't run with ASUS hardware, too bad, the motherboard in my AMD machine is ASUS. I didn't know that before. But the thing won't run right on my Dell Dimension 8300 either. 4 GB ram on both of them, the AMD machine is an X64 dual core in excess of 3 gHz clock. XP 32-bit, SP3.

I would still think about upgrading my CS2 someday when I actually have to leave XP, but after this I'm not as sure as I was before.

I'm sorry I bought it, at least right now. It does have potential, but the productivity even for hobby/home use is pitiful. Reboot takes quite a bit even on a fast machine, and I have to do a lot of them.

I wouldn't recommend buying this program until they fix the bugs and you call their pre-sale customer service and go over your system and get them to assure you it's all good! I gave them 1-star because I thought 0-stars might not register. It deserves 0-stars. Lots of Bells-and-Whistles, no meat.

This is a real surprise, Adobe is usually excellent. A dark surprise.

OK, I downloaded the trial version of premiere 8 to get the new features. The thing was totally useless, hanging or crashing repeatedly. Old Premiere 7 projects or new from scratch - same problem. After sending back 5 or 6 reports, I started questioning why they released this, the quality is so poor. The reason I moved to Adobe (by the way, no major problems with Premiere 7) was the terrible track record with Pinnacle. I produce short videos - 3 minutes typically with 3 or 4 video tracks, and would expect an entry level program to do this. I will take the advice of the other reviewer and wait for version 9 ... or 10. I'd strongly recommend you download this trial before purchasing this product. Good luck!

I cannot believe the problems with this program, i have a very updated computer with huge HD capacity and 12 gigs of ram, i only run this program alone without any other program running in the background and each time i have used it the program freezes, locks up everything and looses any and all work that i was attempting to complete. The final straw came when trying to print a picture, the program locked up as usual etc.etc. Did a restart and the blue screen of death lit up before i could even get to the safe mode, each restart same thing, not even to safe mode. Lucky for me i have an IT depatrment available, lugged in my 50# computer and after a couple of days the results were in. Photoshop corrupted several files ( I never told them what program i was running) and corrupted one of the hard drives which had to be replaced. I have been using earlier versions and dont know what Adobe has done to this program but i am not about to try it again. By the way, a reinstall ( after all this is not an inexpensive program) resulted in the program being loaded twice with conflicting error messages that did not allow either one to be uninstalled and they now lurk in the background taking up space, support just wasted my time and had no clue what to do to even get to a safe screen to start from, nor could they help fix the conflicting error messages. I am like i said lucky to have an IT department who were able to get me up and running. i am just very disappointed with everything to do with this program.

Lighthouse 2 by the way has worked very well, just dont know if i can relax and trust it!

I use Lightroom, Lightroom 2, Picassa, ACDsee 3 pro and do not have any problems with them - they run quickly and reliably, this Elements 8 is a dog and will barely run - basically locks your computer up until it beats its way out of the paper bag. There are already troubleshooting measures on Adobes website, don't waste your valuable time - get something that works. Junk ware. I have owned Elements 6 since it came out - it was doggy too but it was usable - I was hoping 8 had it worked out - it doesn't. I have a high end gaming and graphics computer that I have tweaked to run this kind of program - so buyers beware. I returned it for a refund.

PS:

This thing ran for 2 days locating my pictures and every time it came to something it didn't recognize it stopped for a response - it was so slow any way that you couldn't sit there and wait on it - so I had to check on it every now and then to keep it going. It also imported every graphic piece of junk on my computer. Stay away - sooooo slooooowwwwwww it is completely unusable and Adobe wants you to reconfigure all kinds of stuff on your computer to try and get it to work - don't waste your time, it didn't work for me - one thing they want you to do is disable your default network printer ?

I found out later that the thing did an auto redeye removal as it was importing my photos and ruined hundreds of original files by placing the redeye removal in the wrong place on every picture, closed eyes, on the faces, below the eyes - totally ruined them, I cannot remove it, these are pictures that cannot be replaced. I hope they are backed up somewhere. Garbage Ware from HE@@ !

I've been using computers since the days of the green screens in the early '80s. I built my last 4 PCs. My primary machine is a dual-processor i7 workstation with Win 7 64-bit, 16 GB of RAM, 3 10k rpm drives and an Nvidia GTX 260 with almost 1GB of DDR3 RAM.

Premiere 8 is an awful product. It freezes and crashes regularly during editing and playback. Projects don't save properly. When it works, the basic features are underwhelming,i.e., hadly worth the hassle. There's a lot of hype in the magazines and professional websites about its amazing advanced feature set. For one thing, advanced features are useless if you can't actually use them. For another, you may not even want or need to use some of the exotic ones. 7 times out of 10 it won't launch. The 3 times out of 10 it DOES launch, it crashes when I try to open saved projects.

I bought this because of the professional reviews out there and because I've had outstanding experiences with Adobe software, particularly Photoshop and Acrobat.

This product is not even in the same zip code as Photoshop and Acrobat. Thoroughly unprofessional. It would be an embarassment as an alpha release, let alone a beta version or a shrinkwrap product. Awful. I try to be balanced and positive in my reviews (see my other reviews), but I will unequivocally say this is a complete piece of junk.

I installed the "premiere" package with photoshop and elements and it ruined my computer. Actually, I think the Adobe customer support ruined my computer. THe programs installed fine but niether would run after installation. After 4 days of emailing some idiot at Adobe who pasted the tech support manual in an email back to me and giving me these idiotic and insanely difficult things to "adjust" with my windows settings, none of the software from adobe works on my computer. Not Acrobat or Reader, or the elements/photoshop bundle. I finally give up on the email and call support. I waited for (I kid you not) 2 hours on the phone to talk to some guy who read the same instructions to me that were emailed over the previous 4 days. They hadn't worked previously so maybe doing the same thing again would make it work, but it didn't. Once we finished that ineffective ordeal, the programs still don't work, and the tech support person from Adobes says "this must be a microsoft issue, please call them and let them know you are have problems, once they fix thier problems, call us back"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Everyone that can't solve a problem in this world they caused with thier idiotic software can't blame microsoft as a last result. Who the heck am I supposed to call at Microsoft?

Needless to say, I am taking sending in a refund request for Amazon to take the program back. I hope they don't give me a hassle too. I'm done with ADOBE, and I would NOT buy this program.

Adobe has released the latest version of Photoshop and Premiere Elements that is supposed to be a user friendly editor for photos and video but you may want to read further before looking at a purchase.

Ease of Use, Performance: 10/25
Look & Feel: 10/25
Features 20/25
How much I enjoy 10/25

Total: 50/100

I rated Elements 8 as a 2 on the Amazon 5 star rating due to the fact that I really do not think it rates a higher rating. My 50 percent rating is based on the fact that I received the package including Photoshop and Premiere Elements 8 and cannot recommend Premiere Elements 8 for a purchase at all but Photoshop Elements 8 is well worth a look and purchase.

Photoshop Elements 8 is a fine program and is the shining star in this package but Premiere Elements 8 is a fifty-fifty chance at best. It would seem it either works for people or it doesn't but before I jump on my soap box or band wagon I'll tackle the better part of this package deal and get to the tough stuff later.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 works and works well for an easy to use editor that will not only do things for you easily and quickly but will do things professionals do on images. Cropping and editing a picture to clear up imperfections in portraits and creating those professional looking pictures are at your fingertips.

The editor will start with an organizer but you can quickly get past this and to your editing when you want but the organizer is a nice way to find and organize your images and videos. While I have looked at many of the reviews of both Photoshop Elements 8 as well as the previous version I have not used a previous edition since version 5.

According to many of the reviews version 8 is only one new feature and several fixes beyond version 7 with the new feature being the Recompose Photo Tool. The Recompose Tool is a handy feature and one of those tools much like some of the previous new tools created by Adobe that is unique and a really worthwhile one.

The Recompose Tool adjusts an entire photo to get rid of one part of the image and resize the entire image without messing up the rest of the picture. As an example you can take the middle object or person out of three in a scene and fix the photo's background and foreground.

Both the main background and rest of the scene will be edited and depending on the scene you can have good luck or just terrible editing with this tool. The terrible editing would be for scenes where the background or foreground differs a lot and would not clone well to get it to morph together.

The tool removes the image or section you want and morph the ends or parts to create a whole image with the part you want taken out. It works well and is limited to each pictures' individual features so the tool works well for some pictures and not so good for others but overall is a great new feature.

I have used this tool on a couple of other programs as well as Photoshop Elements and it works very well, is easy to use and fits well with the Clone tool for massive editing on images. This is the type of tool that amateurs can use to create professional results on your own and emphasizes the unique editing power of the Elements set.

Other than this new tool the usual set of color, brightness and adjustment tools and editing tools like crop, clone and all kinds of others allow you to edit and change images with a professional touch. When my son graduated high school my wife took his pictures at several local spots and used Photoshop Elements 5 to edit them for a professional look.

We have given away several of the pictures and had many comments on the professional look, several even asked which local photographer did his graduation photos. Photoshop Elements 8 is the same set of tools and professional quality editing features that make Adobe Photoshop and Elements the industry leader.

Photoshop Elements 8 is a great tool for image editing but if you have the previous edition you will probably want to skip this one as it really does not contain anything more than the Recompose Tool. If you really want this tool than an upgrade would be in order or if you have not purchased a previous version this is a great image editing tool and easy to use for the amateur.

While I did receive the Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8 package I cannot advise purchasing this as a set or even bothering with the Premiere Elements 8 single version. Premiere Elements 8 is broken and I could not really guarantee that it would work for you and I don't think Adobe could either, sorry to say that but I thinks it's true.

I know this is a bold statement but Adobe seems to have dropped the ball or released Premiere Elements 8 before it was ready and I know a lot of people have gotten it to work. A lot of other people are having problems with the basic program of Premiere Elements 8 before they even try to edit a video or connect a camcorder to the computer.

Some comments that led me to believe that others were having problems before I got much into the program are "not ready for primetime" and "Premiere Elements 8 has serious problems". The program works for me for standard definition videos from a low budget camcorder but not from a more expensive camcorder shooting high definition.

After much troubleshooting and help from Adobe support as well as the product manager of Premiere Elements 8 I was informed that the video file that my camcorder uses is not supported by the program. While the system requirements for the program only specify that file types like AVI and H.264 are supported these can vary according to manufacturers of camcorders.

I understand that the program designers can only test and try out so many camcorders before releasing the program but so many other users are also having problems before using any camcorder. The problem here is that so many others are also having serious problems with Premiere Elements 8 and not just novice users so I am not the only one with concerns.

I started a thread on the Adobe forums and found out that many people are having problems with running the program and editing both standard and high definition video. Others have had no problems with it and can successfully edit and burn videos to both DVD and Blu-ray discs but the amount of people with problems is disturbing.

I think looking at forums and sites that sell the program gives a clear indication that this truly is the edition that was released before it was ready. Amazon has two really good indications of the programs problems with 34 customer reviews and 14 of them rating the Premiere Elements 8 and Photoshop Elements 8 package a 1 star out of 5.

Even more to the point the Premiere Elements 8 single program has 56 customer reviews with an overwhelming 35 reviews rated at 1 star out of 5. This really indicates the Premiere Elements program is having serious customer problems and I just cannot recommend it and not be worried about people wasting their money on it.

"The upgrade that never was" and "money wasted" are first comments viewed but many others also show that customers are mad and have not gotten much satisfaction out of this program. Obviously many people are having problems so the program is being used on various computers and with different camcorders so the program would be the only thing common among so many users.

I have also heard from several people that have top systems, new Intel Core i7 processors with plenty of memory and disk space that get other Adobe programs to work just fine and cannot get Premiere Elements 8 to work at all or slowly and with problems. Several users are professionals in video and image editing and have used other Adobe products for years and just cannot get the program to work as well as advertised.

I have contacted the support team as well as the product manager and am not convinced that any problems are with my system or even my camcorder but the program in general. Adobe Premiere Elements 8 does do a good job of editing video, creating complete home movies from videos quickly and easily when it does work.

But when it doesn't work white screens, totally non responsive and very slow computer response are typical as well as having to shut down Premiere Elements 8 using Task Manager or restarting the computer. Problems are so bad with shutting down the program and making sure it has closed completely that someone has created a small program to ensure all the programs processes have closed after you shut it down.

The program seems to have a lot of people on both sides of the issue with those using it and others who are so mad they are throwing it away and looking elsewhere for their video editing needs. There are also a lot of people supporting Adobe and wanting to see them make good on their advertising promises of an easy to use video editing program.

I would also like to see this as a good program as I have been quite happy with previous Adobe products but I do want to be honest and fair in my review. Premiere Elements 8 is just not going to work as well as Adobe had hoped and patching it is not going to instill trust in its use for many.

Adobe's Photoshop Elements 8 is a great program and well worth the cost for a simple to use image editor that works great but I would get the single package if you're going to purchase this image editor. If you have a recent release of Photoshop Elements such as version 7 the upgrade may not be worthwhile as many have said not much has changed since the previous version with the only additional feature being the Recompose Tool.

Photoshop Elements 8 would be a great image editor for a first time purchase for anyone looking for an image editor that is simple to use but can also do those professional looking edits with some work. The Premiere Elements 8 video editing program is not worth the cost because you cannot be sure it will work as many with very good systems and camcorders could not get it to work.

Premiere Elements 8 is just not worth considering for a purchase even if Adobe gets many things fixed as I just would not trust the basic program. Too much is riding on being able to patch a program that may not be right in the first place and patches may not be the answer.

I am not sure if anything would be able to solve this situation other than an apology or admission that something is wrong and the program needs a complete overhaul in the next version. I would seriously consider any other video editing program such as Cyberlink PowerDirector or Corel's Digital Studio 2010 for video editing.

Adobe Premiere Elements 8 is just broken for too many people and the reason I would not consider a purchase of it for anyone, my rating of 50/100 is based on Premiere Elements not being worth a purchase.

Disclosure of Material Connection CMP .ly/1 Based Upon a Review Copy
I have a material connection because I received a review copy (book, CD, software, etc.) or an item of nominal value that I can keep for consideration in preparing to write this content.