Applelust.com: Review - Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0

Review: Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0

Product Name/Version: Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0
OS X?: Yes
Company: Adobe Inc.
URL: http://www.adobe.com
Category: Software/Image Editing
Price: $99
Requirements:
- PowerPC® processor
- Mac OS 9.1, 9.2.x, or Mac OS X v.10.1.3-10.1.5
- 128MB of RAM with virtual memory on
- 350MB of available hard-disk space
- Color monitor capable of displaying thousands of colors at a resolution of 800x600 or greater
- CD-ROM drive
Date of Review: 12/11/02
Rating: Overall: 4 bounces - Pure Lust

Sure, Photoshop is the graphic designers tool of choice for intense image manipulation, but what about the rest of the American population that can't afford to part with $700. Enter Adobe Photoshop Elements, a slimmed down and polished up version of Photoshop that provides everything the digital photography enthusiast want's to take advantage of their digital camera. All at a price that won't break your budget, just $99.99. Now that Photoshop Elements has reached version 2 and compatibility with Mac OS X, iPhoto now has a powerful companion to pick up where iPhoto falls down in image editing. iPhoto is still an awesome tool, it just doesn't perform well in the image editing department. In this review, I'll show you how Photoshop Elements can take you from a digital imaging novice to a digital imaging expert. Let's get started.

When you first launch Photoshop Elements the similarities to its big brother are quite noticeable and the appropriateness of its name becomes very clear. You'll find that all the tools for developing high resolution print projects in the CMYK color space have been stripped away, leaving only the 'elements' needed for editing, printing and sharing digital photos. Unfortunately, the invaluable heal and patch tools from Photoshop do not make an appearance in Elements (See previous article). What you will find though is lots of help in the form of tutorials and Photoshop Elements 'Recipes'. Recipes walk you through the steps that Photoshop pros do to achieve certain effects in your photos or even repair a damaged photo from a scan. More on these later. The colorful welcome screen offers various options to begin working on your pictures. If you're using iPhoto with Elements you probably wont use this welcome screen much, but it's a nice added touch for digital imaging newcomers so they don't immediately feel lost in the jungle.

I like using Photoshop Elements with iPhoto as a team. To do this in iPhoto, open your preferences under the iPhoto menu. Where it says 'Double-clicking photos opens them in:', select 'Other' and navigate to your Applications folder to find Photoshop Elements. Now, every time you double-click a photo it launches Elements and opens your image for you. If you have an OS X compatible scanner, you can scan images into Elements directly by using the File>Import menu item and selecting your scanning utility.

Once you've got an image into Elements the fun begins. The power of Photoshop Elements is in the manipulation of images with drag and drop ease. Elements seems to take Photoshop's 'Actions' palette (the ability to record a series of steps and repeat them a single click) to the next level by helping you to create complex image transformations with a single drag of the mouse. For example, you can add a simple stylized frame to your image. Simply drag and drop the effect onto you picture and Elements performs the necessary steps automatically. All of these easy to use effects are available via a drop down menu in the pallet well. Filters and Layer Styles are also accessible by this same means. Colorful examples of what will happen to your image after an effect is applied are provided under each pallet with categories to sort through the different effects. An example of what you can do using these tools is below.

For more complex image editing, Elements provides 'Recipes' for cooking up some amazing feats of photo editing. Say, for example, you wanted to create an old-fashioned looking photo of your kids. In the 'How To' pallet you will find these Recipes. To find the recipe for an old-fashioned photo click on the tab in the 'How To' pallet and select 'Fun Stuff'. Here you will find a number of different 'Recipes'. Look in some of the other categories too, to find all the different things you can do. Each Recipe is divided into simple steps and each step shows you which menu item to select and in some cases you can let Elements do the work for you by clicking on 'Do this step for me'. Using the recipe to create an old-fashioned photograph, I created the photo below.

For even further image tweaking, Elements provides an excellent set of tools that veteran Photoshop users are already familiar with. For those not familiar, the top set of tools are your selection tools, used for isolating portions of your image, cutting out objects in your image or simply cropping your image. Elements users are provided with a 'Selection Brush' tool not available in the Photoshop toolset. The Selection Brush tool allows you to use a brush to 'paint' a portion of your image you want to isolate. Hold the option key down while painting to erase and area that you've already selected. Although Photoshop users can achieve the same results using the Quick Mask mode, Elements forgoes the switching back and forth between Quick Mask mode and Standard Mode making it much simpler for the Elements user to create complex selections.

The next set of tools are your painting, drawing, text and erasing tools. The custom shape tool lets you create simple or complex shapes to your images. Elements kindly provides the popular 'Thought Bubble' shape so you can add the appropriate text to make fun of your boss or make your wife say things she would never think appropriate.

Yes, you can even add text (much to the chagrin of my wife). Your other drawing tools include the paint bucket tool, gradient tool, paintbrush and pencil tools. In addition to the standard erase tool, Elements also provides the 'Background Eraser Tool' and the 'Magic Eraser Tool'. These special erasers aid in the elimination of unwanted background areas when trying to cut out objects from your image. Finally, there's the all important red-eye reduction brush. The tool used to remove those nasty reflections from the back of our retina making us look like the devil's spawn.

The tools you find below your drawing tools provide subtler ways of manipulating your image. The blur and sharpen tools do exactly what it sounds like they would do. Blurring is handy if you want to draw attention away from something in the background. Select the Blur tool, use a nice soft edged large brush and swath a few strokes in the background to blur out the offending element. The sharpen tool can be used for the reverse effect, but should be used with more carefully than the blur tool as you can easily over-sharpen an image and see graininess appear. The Sponge tool is used to carefully remove or enhance the color saturation of an image. It has the effect of wiping color off or adding more color to your image. The Dodge and Burn tools are classic tools brought to Photoshop from the Darkroom. If you've ever taken a photography class and made your own prints from negatives, then you probably also learned about Dodging and Burning. The Dodge tool has the effect of lightening areas of your image with a soft brush while the Burn tool has the effect of darkening areas of your image.

Finally, the last set of tools you find are the Clone tool, Eye-Dropper tool, the Hand tool and Magnify tool. The Clone tool was the mainstay of Photoshop for a long time for removing dust scratches and wrinkles from images. Now, Photoshop has the heal and patch tools for even more control. Although the Clone tool is available to Elements users, the Heal and Patch tools are only available in Photoshop 7. For new users, the Clone tool is probably the most fun to play with. Once you've discovered that you can give your brother a second head and your sister a third eye on her forehead, you'll then realize the real power of the clone tool. It's most useful for restoring an old damaged photograph to nearly new condition for reprinting. The Eyedropper lets you select a specific color in your image, like the skin tone from a face or the color of your hair. The Hand tool lets you quickly scan around an image after you have zoomed in with the Magnify tool. The best keyboard short-cut to learn in Photoshop or Elements is the Space Bar. It invokes the Hand tool when pressed and then reverts you back to your previous tool.

Now that you've got all these pictures ready, what do you do with them? Photoshop Elements provides a number of ways to prepare your photos for different purposes. To share your photos with family, Elements provides a simple way to attach a photo or photos to an e-mail message. It even warns you if the image may be to large for e-mail and offers to auto size the images for you. It then launches OS X's Mail application and attaches the photos to a new mail message ready to send. Also, Elements lets you build a Web based Photo Gallery using prebuilt templates. Choose a folder of images and let Elements build an html page for you to upload to a web server. Many ISP's provide free web space with their accounts. Contact your ISP for more information on how to do this. In addition Elements can create a PDF file of pictures and create a PDF slideshow of pictures. As always, you can print your own pictures using your photo printer. Photoshop Elements excellent 'Picture Package' tool lets you arrange multiple prints on single sheet for the most efficient use of photo paper.

I've only explored the tip of the iceberg that is Photoshop Elements. The best way to learn it is to dig in and explore further. Experiment with applying Filters, Effects and Layer Styles on shape and text layers for some more fun. If you don't like something just undo and try again. Explore the different recipes to see what is possible. Follow the steps, and in no time you will be a digital imaging pro. Anyone who has fumbled around with the clumsy software provided with their digital cameras needs Photoshop Elements. It's the best companion for your digital camera and makes owning a digital camera lots more fun. I give Adobe Photoshop Elements a Pure Lust rating.

- Michael Tate Jones

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