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Adobe Photoshop Elements 4

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Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 20 reviews Back to product review
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23 out of 24 people found this review helpful

4.0 stars

"All in one digital photo management"

by AGrimwade on November 28, 2005

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.

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2 replies to this review

reply by: pip22 on November 23, 2006

Your criticisms are misguided. Elements 4 is first and foremost an image-editor not an image management program. If you only want image management you should have bought Adobe Album! Unlike you, I find the Organiser both irritating and superfluous to my needs, and the fact that you can't do a 'custom' install to escape having to install it is a pain. It is bloatware, but it's the Organiser which makes it so. The Editor with built-in Adobe Raw is excellent.

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reply by: mosb on May 18, 2006

I am currentely using Album 2.0. Are my current "Tags" compatible if I buy Elements 4?

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Adobe Photoshop Elements 4: $89.95

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