Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 [OLD VERSION]
by Adobe
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Software Reviews of Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Photoshop Elements 4 ROCKS
Summary: 5 Stars
I consider Photoshop Elements 4 to be the number one accessory for every digital photographer.
This software package is decently priced and delievers the goods.
Easily does panoramics by combining or "stiching" several photos into one. Just drag and drop.
Retouching photos
Elimimating redeye
Lighten and darken certain parts or the entire picture.
Elements has the most often used tools found in Adobe CS2 and they work the same way.
If you ever outgrow Elements you will have no trouble moving on to CS2.
Elements 4 is well supported with many books and forums, making your learning experience quick and easy.
Elements 4 brings real fun to photography as well as doing all the essentials such as cropping and resizing with ease.
Almost all pictures need a bit of retouching and with Elements this chore is fast and easy.
Changing colors of objects, curing exposure and focus problems are a snap.
The bandaid tool makes removing blemishes on portraits or reducing wrinkles fast and easy.
With Elements 4 you can also make your own postcards and greeting cards
Create your own photo website
Do montages and so much more.
Elements 4 is absolutely essential to all digital photographers.
Customer Review: All-in-one tool for getting the most from your photos
Summary: 5 Stars
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 has some new features that make it an all-in-one tool for getting the most from your photos. The first step in any photo project is to import your photos from your camera onto your hard drive and Elements' Photo Downloader makes storing photos easy. A new feature in this latest version is the automatic red eye correction. When this option is selected in the Photo Downloader, your photos are automatically analyzed for red eye and the correction is made for you as your photos are loaded. Organizing your photos becomes challenging as your collection grows. However with a little help from the Organizer, you can keep your photos organized and easy to find. You can switch between the Photo Browser and the Date View which helps you find your photos by date, import batch, folder location, meta-data, caption, note, file name and so on. Of course, the Keyword Tag System has been improved also. New to this version is the addition of camera meta-data such as camera model and shutter speed. You can also use the Find By Visual Similarity With Selected Photo(s) command to find photos that have common visual aspects such as clothing or scenic locations. You can even set certain folders as watched folders and Elements will keep track of new additions to these folders and notify you accordingly. This feature must have been created just for me. I'm always starting new folders for my images because I can never remember which folder I was using for a specific project, especially if it has been some time since I have worked on that project. Now I just set them as watched folders and let Elements keep track of them for me. Within the Organizer, you can also order prints, share photos online or by email and switch to the Quick Fix, Standard Edit or Creation Setup Wizard.
Viewing and fixing your photos is easy within the Quick Fix workspace. Along the side of the generous viewing area are the tools that you use most frequently including the Zoom, Hand, Crop, Red Eye and the new Magic Selection Brush tool. As in all Adobe software, the Options Bar across the top changes as each tool is selected. I especially like the new Magic Selection Brush tool for isolating the subject of a photo from the background. You just brush your mouse over the subject and Elements completes the selection around the subject for you. On the right of the workspace are the tools used to correct or adjust your photos such as Smart Fix, Red Eye Fix, Levels, Contrast, Color and Sharpen. You start by clicking the Auto button to use the default settings and then make finer adjustments with slider bars. Everything is right there in the same place and there are no floating palettes to clutter the workspace.
The Standard Edit workspace is for finer adjustments to your photos. You have all the familiar tools and some new ones including the Magic Selection Brush that we talked about earlier and the Cookie Cutter tool. You also have an improved Spot Healing Brush and Straighten Tool. I really like the improvements to the Spot Healing Brush. It does a much better job at preserving the original texture and shading when you remove objects or flaws from photos which lessens the need to make further touch ups. The Straighten Tool is handy for those photos that are just a little crooked. You just drag your mouse over the photo to set a guideline which Elements then uses to straighten your photo - all in one quick step. New also is the Adjust Color for Skin Tone command used to correct skin tone in your photos. You click on an area where the skin tone is correct and Elements uses this sample to correct the rest of the skin tones in the photo. Of course, you still have the familiar Styles and Effects and Layers palettes.
This latest version of Elements has some new features for scrapbooking. As mentioned earlier, one of the new tools is the Cookie Cutter tool. This new one-step tool makes cutting shapes from your photos a snap. Just choose a shape from a large variety and drag your mouse over the area of the photo you wish to keep. When you release your mouse button, the rest of the photo becomes transparent. You then can adjust the size and location of the shape if needed.
If you are like me, you place three, four or more photos on the scanner and scan them all at one time. In the past, the result was one large image containing all the photos and you had to manually separate them. Now, Elements does it for you. It automatically finds the edges of each photo, crops away the empty area between the photos and opens each photo into the workspace individually. Boy, is that a time saver.
Another time saver is the Magic Extracter feature which is another way to isolate a portion of a photo. Within the Magic Extractor dialog box, you first click on the subject you wish to keep with the Foreground Brush tool and then click on the area you wish to remove with the Background Brush tool. Then click the Preview button and use the fine adjustment tools and Smoothing Brush to complete the process.
Switch to the Creation Setup Wizard and you can create many projects from preinstalled, customizable templates. The Slide Show feature is my favorite. You can add pan and zoom or transition effects, include clipart, text and even audio. Then save your slide show in a format optimized for disc, screen, web or email. Other projects include photo album pages, a bound photo book, greeting cards, calendars and HTML photo gallery.
Customer Review: A great produce if you have used photoshop at work..
Summary: 4 Stars
A great produce if you have used photoshop at work and now want a home version or for your own business. Has all of the main features you need at a fair price. Is a serious produce that takes some effort to master but I feel was worth it! Customer Review: Do not ignore the many one star reviews...
Summary: 1 Stars
No. Do not ignore how many of us have provided a one star WARNING to this unworthy software for we all have good reasons. Unless Adobe starts patching it up to where one can decently work with it, I will personally look for something else for my photo editing needs. If you are a pro or make a living out of photography, needless to say, this is definitely not the program to use. Would I recommend their high end Photoshop CS? Certainly not if judging from Elements. Furthermore, if you use Elements then either as an amateur or only ocassionally, even for the most basic things, this is still not good as it will freeze up and crash on you frequently. When it works, it will perform very very slowly even on the fastest, top of the line system out there, which it may not have been the one I tried it on, but it came very close. Loaidng up images with Elements will test the patience of a Buddhist monk. I simply could not believe how this program, with all the updates installed, would still crash on a dual processor, 1GB RAM system built for memory intensive graphic arts applications. Even while consistetnly saving, if you do many things between each save, you run the risk of throwing away lots of precious work during one of these frequent crashes.
I was warned by many here. Since I still bought it, I deserved what I got. Consider your alternatives!
Customer Review: Don't Let The One Star Reviews Scare You!
Summary: 5 Stars
The one star reviews here are people upset with 4.0 as an upgrade. I can appreciate their predicament, but as a new Elements user I can only say that 4.0 is AWESOME. I am no stranger to technology but I am fairly new to digital photo manipulation. I have begun the scanning of my thousands of 35mm slides and have been astounded at the ease with which I have been able to take some great images, which had minor flaws such as lens flare and the like, and 'repair' these images.
Especially useful to me so far has been the ability to lighten shadow areas and darken highlights in photos to make decent pictures look so much better. This program, for me, has been decently intuitive considering how deep the tool set is.
I have no need for the full Photoshop and am digging deeper into Elements each day, constantly amazed at it's ability to let me make my slide scans even better. It has been particularly useful in allowing me to take old slides from my childhood, given to me by my Mom, and make extrememly dark slides as well as faded slides look as if they were taken last week. To have 'new' photos of me and my siblings with my parents is simply priceless.
The book that came with the program is a good starting point for many tasks. The help within the program has been a bit of a disappoinment though. I'm going to buy a book to allow me to get deeper, something I never anticipated. That's a good thing, that this program has made me hungry to learn even more about what it can do, based simply on the things I've been able to accomplish and figure out on my own.
I came to this program not having used others or even earlier versions of Elements so my opinion isn't skewed by liking or disliking its value as an upgrade.
Do not be afraid to buy the program if you are not experienced with Elements or digital photo manipulation. It will do what you want, and then some.