Product Review: Page (1) of 1 - 10/28/09

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Adobe's Photoshop Elements is one of the most full featured image editing applications on the market thanks to its constant updating of existing features as well as new features. When an application reaches version 8, it causes users to wonder what could possibly be added to an application that already has a lot of depth. Photoshop Elements has many features, and version 8 adds a host of new features that make your image editing and organizing endeavors more interesting. Within the scope of this review, several of the new features to the Editor and Organizer will be covered. This will cover Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows. The Macintosh version will be covered at a later date.

Full screen Organizer mode gives you some options when viewing your images in the organizer. You can use the Toggle Filmstrip tool to get a bigger view of your images, access the general properties of the image, which includes file name, camera type size and date image was captured, ratings, location and any voice annotations. You can also look at images side by side and above and below.

You can also access the Quick Edit window, which enables you to rotate the image and make edits. You can perform Auto Smart Fix, adjust color balance and contrast, adjust tonal range, adjust contrast without affecting color, enhance details, find and fix red eye, mark for printing, undo and redo changes, and delete the image. The auto functions are one click edits in Organizer, which is ideal when you don't want to go into Full edit mode.

Full Screen

Full Screen. Quick Edit tools are at left. Image views at right.

A new feature enables you to work in Organizer to find people and tag them. Called Find People for Tagging, this tool enables you to quickly find people in your photos and quickly give them a name. When you select Find People for Tagging, hit the Add Missing person tab and a box opens so you can place the box over the person you wish to tag. You can then name the person and hit done. If your images show clear facial content, when you open another image with the same person, the Find people for tagging tool will ask you if that person is in the photo "Is this Juliana?" You can then click the green arrow if the software correctly named the person, or the red x, if it is not that person.

Find people for tagging

The new Recompose tool enables you to resize images by dragging the handles on the sides or corners of the selected portion of the image. Once you've dragged the sides or corners, select the recompose tool and the software does the rest. This is an ideal tool that enables you to easily focus on the subject of the image.

Auto-Analyzer

After you run Auto-Analyzer, Smart tags appear and let you know the parameters of each image.

Auto-Analyzer
When you run the Auto Analyzer, it will scan all the photos in the Organizer and auto tag them how it sees each photo, with tags such as In Focus, two faces in photo, too dark, blurry, High Quality, etc. At first, I didn't understand what it did until I started viewing the images one by one in the Organizer. This tool causes me to wonder how it actually works. There is complex math in use for sure.

Recompose before. Notice the objects hanging on the wall.

Recompose-after. The objects hanging on the wall are squeezed but not the subject.

PhotoMerge Exposure
PhotoMerge Exposure enables you to combine the best elements of an image and place them in another image that may have better lighting. PhotoMerge Exposure has both manual and automatic controls. When you select PhotoMerge Exposure in the Organizer, you'll select two images that you want to merge. There are tabs to the right of the Preview window in Edit that walk you through the Automatic or Manual process. When you choose Automatic, and choose Smart Blending, you can adjust Highlight Details, Shadows, and Saturation. Keep in mind when working with this tool that your images need to be very close to identical when using PhotoMerge Exposure. In Automatic mode, I experienced a lot of double vision, with objects not lining up correctly. Using the auto align helped. This tool almost requires that your photos be nearly identical for it to work correctly, and I highly suggest that you take photos from a stationary position to ensure that the images that will be merged line up in a satisfactory manner.

Sharing
Once you've finished with your images, it is time to share them with those in your circle, your friends, family, and crew. When version 2 came out, people usually printed out their photos or emailed them as attachments. There was no Flickr or Facebook or other social media sites to share photos. Photoshop Elements 8 maintains a variety of ways to share your photos. You can share via an online album, email attachment, photo mail, burn to disk (video DVD, Blu Ray, data CD, DVD), video sharing sites, PDF, Flickr, SmugMug, Kodak EasyShare, and via mobile phones and players.

First Impressions
Photoshop Elements has been my go to image editor since version 2 came out at the beginning of this decade. I've been using it for both personal and web work and really enjoy each new upgrade to the application. It has been full featured for several versions, and the new features in this release add even more value to the application. Of the new features my favorites are the Auto Analyzer and the capability to make edits in the full screen Organizer. PhotoMerge Exposure in my opinion needs to be made easier to use, because I just didn't get the results that I wanted, but this could be from the way my photographs were composed. Photoshop Elements 8 comes in two versions, regular and Plus. The regular version is priced at $99.99, while the Plus version, priced at $139 adds 20GB of online storage, and tutorials, artwork, templates, and other benefits.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows
$99.99 ($79 with rebate)
$139 for Plus version
www.adobe.com

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