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"A very good Photo Editing Program" on by geru
Pros: Nice looking interface, Lots of Tutorials on the Internet
Cons: Slow very slow
Summary: Adobe elements is a very capable photo editing program at an affordable price. It will do most anything the average user wishes to accomplish with photo editing.
My problem with Photo Elements 4 and previous versions over the years has been it is considerably slower than equivalent programs.
I downloaded the try and buy version of Elements 4 hoping that Adobe had made the necessary adjustments to speed up the program and found that it remains the same as other versions, doggedly slow. Even having over a gig of ram doesn't seem to speed it up much.
At the same time I downloaded Corel's PaintShop Pro X. The comparison between the two products found:
Adobes photo management system is slightly better than Corel's.
Photo editing capabilities were equal.
Paint Shop had an advantage in the help section of the program. It is a very nice intuitive help program, if activated. Additionally Corel's retail program gives you access to over 2 hours of on-line tutorial video's from Lynda.Com. After reviewing these tutorials a new user will be well on their way to proficiency.
Both programs have allot of on-line tutorial help for specific editing techniques.
With almost all things being equal I settled for Corel's product. I liked their intuitive help panel and the availability of the videos on Lynda.com. Most importantly was the fact that Paint Shop Pro X performed at blazing speeds when compared to Adobe Elements 4. -
"All in one digital photo management" on by AGrimwade
Pros: Does it all
Cons: Tries too hard to cover all the bases, and ends up sluggish
Summary: Since Elements 3.0, Adobe has combined Photoshop Elements image editing with Photoshop Album collection management. This has really come to fruition in 4.0, and for those that want two excellent prgrams in one, PE4 will do the job. HOWEVER, it is a big program, and as noted by some other reviewers it can be sluggish, even on new fast machines with loads of memory.
The Organizer (as Album is now called) has some excellent features, and is a powerful digital photo database. It easily handles thousands of photos, allows storage offline on CD, wide range of tagging and searching, etc. The interface is pretty intuitive, and does not take a lot to learn.
The Editor is a different matter entirely. A stripped-down version of Photoshop, but with many bells and whistles that I cannot envisage needing in a digital photo management program. Perhaps I am unimaginative, but all those filters that graphics people love in Photoshop (Ocean ripple, anyone?) just seem like overkill for a program designed for amateur photographers.
Now that I have my 6000 digital photos organized in Elements, I could not do without it. I just wish it did not suffer so from adobebloatitis. -
"The photo management software of choice for all but the most demanding users" on by gordonrd
Pros: Great interface and versatiltiy
Cons: Modular loading
Summary: CNET is right on the mark in its asssessment of this one. Photoshop Elements is no longer a poor man's Photoshop. It is remarkably user friendly and can do a lot for you automatically, but it is also very robust and if you take the time to learn its more intricate features it will amaze you. The integrated albumn is wonderful for organizing your photos. They need to add this to the Mac version when it comes out -- it is not in the current Mac version. I agree that the modular design causes some lags in switching from organizing to editing, but it is only really bad on slow machines and on the initial startup of the editor.
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"A BIT more sluggish?" on by Whamrick
Pros: Loading gives you time to take a coffee break.
Cons: Loading gives you time to take a coffee break.
Summary: "A bit more sluggish than we'd like" - Cnet Review.
A BIT more sluggish? This program is a dog! It takes forever to load the Organizer part of the program, THEN at least as long to load the editor part of the program. A pitiful effort on the part of Adobe. Stick with 3.0 if you have it or check out any other photo editing program. -
"Good, but not perfect..." on by SpringChick
Pros: Organizer is flexible and supports XMP info
Cons: SLUGGISH! Requires Windows XP
Summary: I primarily use this product for the Organizer as I do the bulk of my my photo editing in another program. I currently have around 7000 photos & other assorted images cataloged in the program, and it is very sluggish on my newer Dell (1 GB RAM), taking several minutes to load the organizer with noticeable lag times when searching or selecting based on tags. Another big disappointment is the progam's "closed world" that does not recognize folder and filename changes made outside of the program. I recently installed a new hard drive and moved all of my digital photos to the new new drive, making several changes to the directory structure in the process. Imagine my surprise when I found that all of the thumbnail images in PSE were no longer connected to their image file. With 7000+ photos, it took a while to reconnect all of these. I also am disappointed at the lack of support for Windows 2000 as this forces me to use an alternate software at work than at home -- what is up with this? Windows XP by no means has a corner on the OS market -- why would adobe develop the product only for one OS?
However, I continue to use the program as my primary image cataloger on Windows XP as the Organizer offers more tagging flexibility and hierarchy depth than any of the other photo album/organizer programs I have tried, including the ability to catalog images that have been archived to CD and support for IPTC/XMP info (although there is much room for improvement here). I am hoping that subsequent versions will improve on some of the short-comings and at the very least, the fact that it is XMP compatible should allow me to easily transport my photos to a new program if another software becomes more desirable in the meantime.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 user reviews
Where to Buy
MSRP: $99.99
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