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Impressionistic Review: Elements 4 for the
Mac - A Sibling Grows Up…
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© 5-26-06
Dr. Michael Roach
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We are happy to introduce the newest writer at Applelust.
Dr. Michael Roach.
If you are a teacher in a College or University
and are lucky enough to teach beginning or introductory
classes AND advanced classes in the same subject
area, the chances are good that you will have the
same student more than once. It is sometimes
a gratifying experience to realize that the clumsy
and bumbling student who seemed only a bit above
mediocre as a freshman can somehow turn into a confident
and capable performer after some three or four years
of experience. But that’s what maturation
does.
I think I have just had that experience with a software
program, one that definitely grew up to be something
to be proud of.
In 2002 I tried Elements 2.0 for the Macintosh and
found it a bit awkward and gangly, and while I thought
it had potential I was firmly enamored with its elder
sibling Photoshop 7. I never looked again at
the application and soon it was deleted from my hard
drive during a moment of crisis when I needed more
storage. I was teaching students who intended
to be professional designers or photographers. Photoshop
was their byword.
Time passed. I missed Elements 3 completely. We
passed in the halls and the labs somehow unbeknownst
to one another, and Photoshop grew from 7 to CS and
then CS2. Someone told me that Elements 4 was
available for Windows and not Macintosh, and at that
moment it didn’t matter to me. CS2 was
my love, all loaded with extra plug-ins from a full
dozen different companies, and fulfilling nearly
my every wish. But then Elements 4 was released
for the Macintosh, and a friend told me that I really
ought to take a look again. Respecting his
acumen I decided to indulge myself for the moment.
Well, after all, not everyone wants to buy a full
version of Photoshop just to do his or her hobby
pictures, I thought. I do get regular calls
for ideas on applications for photo editing when
I am teaching workshops on digital photography. Not
everyone is a graphic designer or professional photographer
nor do they want to be, I rationalized. Over
the last couple of years I have found myself teaching
a different kind of student. The popularity of the
beginning digital photography workshops that I teach
has grown considerably.
I’ve noted two kinds of students in my beginning
digital photography workshops. The first of
these are usually older couples who have received
cameras from their children who are insisting that
their parents enter the digital age. These
are parents who are not prepared to make a substantial
investment in either computer equipment or software,
but they want to be able to exchange pictures with
their children and friends. The second kind
of student in these beginning classes is usually
a young couple whose parents want to see pictures
of the grandchildren. For both of these groups,
Elements 4 will do very well and I can happily recommend
and demonstrate it.
My advanced workshop students are usually already
professional photographers who sign up to learn the
latest tricks and effects. They have already
moved far beyond Elements and embrace Photoshop CS2
and Lightroom, and have often spent as much on specialized
plug-ins as they have for the applications themselves.
It only took me a brief encounter to realize that
the gangly freshman had matured into a fully capable
performer that was well worth more than the reasonable
asking price. Four years had passed since I
had looked at Elements 2, and in that passage of
time, the application had definitely matured. I
know now that I will have no problem suggesting it
as suitable software for the family or amateur element
in my digital photography workshops.
So, lets take a look at Elements 4 for the Macintosh...
For starters—just to see if they would work—I
loaded all my important plug-ins from Photoshop CS2
into Elements 4 by way of preferences when
Elements let me check the Additional Plug-Ins Folder
and indicate my CS2 Plug-Ins folder as the supplementary
source. Only two of my dozen plus plug-ins
failed to work properly and those are actually actions
hiding under a plug-in’s appearance and interface.
What’s New? What’s Great?
Well, it certainly seems like much of Photoshop
CS2 is somehow squeezed down and fitted inside of
Elements 4. An experienced Photoshop user will be
faced with the feeling that they have rented a budget
automobile while their own luxury vehicle is in the
shop. Things are just a bit different; the
steering wheel slants differently, and the radio
and heater buttons are in the wrong place it seems. The
seat is not as comfortable. But everything for transportation
is there; its just there is less power under the
hood and the ride is a bit noisier and maybe the
radio is AM only. But it all works. For
what it costs you can see it as really good gas mileage.
So, granted some of the controls are a bit
less precise and maybe not as graphically packaged
as those of CS2, but at about one sixth of the price
of CS2, I think Elements 4 is a bargain. It
will get you there and cost a lot less on the road.
For the beginning photographer the ability to straighten
horizon lines and trim the picture edges has to count
high on the list of important newly added items. One
of the real problems of the “Mom and Pop taking
the family snapshot pictures” is the often
apparent “list to one side factor” where
the camera always seems to be tilted at 5 to 10 degrees
to the horizon. Straightening the horizon line
is often the first step in improving picture quality.
Auto red-eye removal counts for a lot also in the
pictures from the family digital camera where the
flash center is often only an inch from the camera
lens and the idea of a supplementary flash isn’t
even a discussable. Skin tones are improved,
and blessedly, when you want to add text the font
menus are WYSIWYG—no longer does Dad have to
try to remember the difference between Times and
Times New Roman when he’s matching type he
has previously used; he can see it.
Advanced Noise Reduction is there
for those who insist on shooting subjects more than
six to ten feet from the camera in low light. Those
same photographers are the ones who will also shoot
a backlit subject without remembering to set the
camera for backlighting. Quick Fix has
a neat set of adjustments to fix red eye, followed
by lighting sliders to darken highlights and lighten
shadows as well as adjust overall midtone contrast,
and though it doesn’t do as good a job as layers > duplicate
layer > screen and adjust opacity; it
is quick and painless and pretty close to magic in
the eyes of the amateur shooter.
Below that in the same pull-down menu, the ability
to adjust Saturation, Hue, Color Temperature and Tint is
the quick way to adjust for the fact that indoor
lighting without flash is going to be reddish or
green depending on whether incandescent or florescent
lighting is involved. The ability to adjust
skin tone with the Tint slider and Color
Temperature with its slider with one set
of handily grouped controls means less menu hunting. It’s
a toss up as to whether the best approach is from
the Quick Fix window at the top
right of the toolbar or from the Standard
Edit menu still further to the right. Both
work well; it is a matter of choice, though I was
also impressed with the results that Auto
Smart Fix from a menu located under Enhance at
the center of the menu bar gave me on a dozen images
taken in too low and too contrasty light. Adjust
Color for skin tone gives a quick method
of matching skin tones between images and a bit of
blush overcomes truly pale skin.
Finally, on the Quick Fix menu,
the ability to Sharpen the image
from that menu without having to navigate to a sharpen
function seems to be a real advantage as well. All
digital images need some sharpening; it is a characteristic
of the way pixels responds to light. In camera
sharpening for higher end cameras it can be an internal
setting, but I strongly feel that it is an adjustment
that should be made after the fact and made by the
operator as the last step when preparing to print. We
all have a feeling that we know what sharpening means,
and how much ought to take place. It should
be an operator’s choice, not a preset.
The Custom Slideshow feature allows
a quick run through of all the days’ images
for the family, while Bridge allows
the photographer a quick intuitive means of navigation
through a multitude of folders to find previous images. Bridge is
a fully appreciated addition to CS2 and the addition
of it to Elements 4 is to me a fully admirable move
on the part of Adobe.
Elements 4 can handle RAW images
and convert them to the much more sensible DNG format
which will ensure that those digital negatives can
still be read at a distant date in case the proprietary
format of the digital camera disappears with the
death or abandonment of the camera company for their
proprietary format.
In the outputting of the image, whether to print
or email, Elements 4 has simplified this step and
made it easy to print or to send the images to family
and friends. The warning that a print is too
large for email and the simple ability to convert
it to an easily emailable size is a good way to keep
the family on friendly terms. As one of those
individuals who lives at the end of a country lane
with dial-up as the only available connection, I
bless this function. I have too often been
at the end of hour long downloads when family members
have included full size images—several full
size images—in the family update.
Finally, when hitting the Print button,
Elements 4 opens in the Print Preview mode,
showing the size and position of the print on the
page. This eliminates the forgetting of the Page
Setup step in preparing to print.
All-in-all Elements 4 for the Macintosh is more
than enough application for the beginning photographer
and the hobbyist. The time will eventually
come for the photographer who is developing advancing
skills to realize that there can be more depth to
the program—finer adjustments, subtleties and
scripts or actions. Then it will be time
for more advanced work with Photoshop in whatever
iteration and version number it then carries.
-
Dr. Michael Roach is a retired Professor
of Art from Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas
where he first taught photography and eventually digital imaging
and computer art for 33 years. His fine arts images from his travels
in Morocco, Ireland, England, France, Spain and the American West
are carried by several galleries and hang in many private collections.
Both his and his wife's (artist Robbie Lacomb Roach) images may be
found at http://w2.netdot.com/lacomb-roach_press.
