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Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 (PC)

A great photo editing package for home users, 2008-09-06
Presently on PcPro's `A-List', Adobe Elements is a cut down version of Adobe's £500+ Photoshop/Photoshop Extended CS3, and costs considerably less while still having a lot of useful photo editing capabilities. Photoshop CS3 has a steep learning curve, but not so Photoshop elements. Elements is far more home-user friendly and a lot of the program is geared towards image storage and management of the photos on your hard drive. It also helps you with emailing, web output and scrapbooks of your images. The program auto-downloads your images from the camera to folders, set up using the date, and can even process the images, say automatically removing red-eye, while it does it. Using stacks you can set up image databases [smart albums] using keywords like names, places, events, etc.., and you can even search using visual tags within the image. That said, I shun the image database options offered by Photoshop Elements and Extended, preferring the simplicity of logical folder names instead. Also, like PhotoShop, the image database side isn't seamlessly integrated into the image editing side [to the point where it's actually annoying].

Version 7 of Adobe Photoshop Elements [and the sister video editing Adobe Premiere Elements 7] has now arrived. Elements 7 has a new Quick Fix tool to soften surfaces while keeping the edge and detail sharp. Plus there's a new Scene Cleaner tool that can brush away undesirable objects from a photo [so you can ditch that car or tourists from the view] and there's now a Smart Brush which lets you instantly apply effects to a selected area of the image. Plus Element's 7 sports a new single step `whiten teeth' and `make the sky blue' tool.

Also new in Element's 7 will be a free subscription to Photoshop.com, a special service Adobe has devised to bring friends together by providing quick access to on-line backup, storage, and sharing capabilities. You get 2GB of on-line storage, `enough for up to 1,500 photos', so you can view your photos from virtually anywhere. Thus Photoshop Elements goes `Facebook', allowing you to share your photos `in fun, interactive ways via invitation-only'. For these `Online Albums' you will get new templates delivered to Elements on a regular basis. There will also be a Photoshop.com ` Plus' membership offering 20 Gb [15,000 photos] of on-line photo storage, but that will require you paying an annual fee. The first year's 20 Gb subscription is included in Adobe's `Elements 7 Plus' [but not this standard version].

All the old Elements tools are there as well. For editing you have a set of 'quickfix' options or you can load the full image editor for greater manual control: such as adjust sharpness, correct camera distortion, levels, hue and skin colour. Naturally you have standard tools like crop and adjust image size (pixels) as well. You can now do things like brush away wrinkles with the spot healing/healing brush, use clone overlays, make improved B&W images, add image vibrance and clarity, make composite pictures, copy and even blend parts from different images (to say swap faces from a series of photo's so that all your kids are smiling at the camera in one image). You also get a layers palette for composites, shapes, text effects and frames. Plus there are step-through guides [guided edit] to help you get there. The software will also integrate with scanners twain interfaces if you are into scanning film, and the Fill Light [shadow/highlight] tool is pretty essential for bringing out detail in shadows from any slide/negative scan. Plus Elements can handle RAW camera images, although I use TIFF/jpg (Elements can save in any common image format).

System requirements are quite high: CD drive, 1Gb system RAM, XP or Vista, 2GHz processor, and a Direct-X 9 graphics card [and Adobe installers can reject systems that don't meet the spec]. Elements 7 perhaps isn't a crucial upgrade from Elements 6, but for new home users, or those with older versions, it's very powerful photo editing and image database software from the market leaders. Adobe Elements 7 has only two real competitors at the price: Paint Shop Pro X2 and Serif PhotoPlus X2. Both these programs are also excellent and worthy of consideration, with PhotoPlus's strength being it's about as powerful but rather cheaper to buy and upgrade. Professional users will still head towards Adobe PhotoShop Darkroom 10 and the fantastically expensive Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, although even at work we have Adobe Elements on a few imaging workstations for casual users, where the high cost of PhotoShop CS3 Extended simply isn't justified. That said experienced Photoshop CS3 users will find Elements 7 lacking in a few features they are used to.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 is also available to buy as a cheaper double pack with the new Adobe Premiere Elements 7 video editing software, which may well be better value than this upgrade. Plus this double pack qualifies for a large educational discount for non-commercial use if you, or a child in the house, are in full time education [from primary school to college]. Similar large educational discounts apply to much of Adobes software.

Adobe After Effects CS4 - Upgrade Edition (Mac)

Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition (3 User Licence) (PC)

Brilliant so far - an excellent upgrade, 2008-08-06
I have just received Office 2007 Home & Student and Outlook 2007 to upgrade from 2003 - and after reading some of the reviews here I was initially a bit wary. Thank goodness I took no notice. It's a vast improvement and I have adapted to the new format almost instantly.

First - I decided to upgrade over 2003 because unless you are committed to a new software upgrade you are tempted to go back to the familiar. Or so I thought. In any case - running both does have some difficulties unless you make some registry changes (so I've read) so I opted for the complete upgrade. Installation went without a hitch and all my data was there in Outlook - safe and sound.

Now to the infamous ribbon - it's easy to learn (I've only had the software a few hours and I'm using it as if I'd had it forever) and I do find it more intuitive. I had to look up how to compare documents (I do a lot of marking for students and so comparing revised assignments is a major task for me) and the new version is heavenly. My styles transferred across - and virtually everything I've needed to do (insert pictures, add a border to an image, use a spreadsheet, send e-mails, etc) has gone without a hitch. In many cases I found I'd done it without even thinking about it.

My concession to the old way of working was to add all my favourites to the Quick Access Toolbar (I didn't realise from the reviews that you can add anything at all to this) so I can still one-click on the things I use a lot - just like in 2003. Frankly I cannot understand why anyone would go back to an earlier version after trying this. And the price is sweet.

I am looking forward to exploring even more delights. I wish I had upgraded sooner.

Adobe CS4 Web Premium - Upsell from Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Flash (PC)

Photoshop Elements 6 (PC)

Perfection!, 2008-08-15
This software is excellent. I have Windows Vista and this exciting software works just fine. I couldn't be happier with this product. Easy and intuitive and you can pick it up without a manual within minutes.

Wonderful!

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