Abobe Photoshop Elements: Elements of the Real Thing A Trimmed-Down, Sub-$100 Edition of Photoshop Scott Koegler
Adobe Photoshop Elements is likely to be exactly what you need at a budget price
Adobe's Photoshop CS is the industry standard for image editing. You'll find it on virtually every graphic artist's computer. And there's good reason for their choice. Photoshop has a collection of image management tools that can require professional users years to master.
This depth of functionality means there's almost nothing that Photoshop can't accomplish when it comes to creating and modifying digital images. Unfortunately, this same versatility frustrates most casual users, especially after they've shelled out over $600 for the full version of Photoshop.
Adobe has been able to maintain a premium price for Photoshop in the face of arguably comparable – and certainly less expensive – products like Corel Draw, ACD Canvas Professional, Paint Shop Pro, and others. But the hefty price tag has left one segment of the image editing market completely out of Adobe's reach.
Products with price tags under the $100 mark such as Paint Shop Pro have been able to deliver useable features to non-graphic professionals at a price they are willing to pay. And while they pale feature-wise in comparison to Photoshop, the typical user is likely never to notice the features they are missing.
Adobe has apparently reacted to the cries for mercy or simply decided the market for less expensive software was getting too large to ignore. Their trimmed-down version of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, is a well thought out response to the rash of requests from customers for affordable image editing software. It includes a reduced set of Photoshop features along with some handy additions to enhance overall ease of use.
We used Photoshop Elements to edit a series of digital images in order to see how it performs. We tried several tasks ranging from basic contrast and color modification to more complex operations that required advanced features like layers and image combinations. Overall, we found lots of similarity to previous standard versions of Photoshop.
Some differences we noticed, such as the Selection Brush, the Recipes pallet, and the helpful hints panel, were additions that weren't part of Photoshop. These enhancements are intended to make it easier for casual users. Of course, while professional users would be able to get the same results, they would use their experience to do so (and would also have more flexibility because they wouldn't be using the predefined tool).
