Adobe Photoshop Elements 7

For comparison purposes I've uploaded two copies of a carshow photo, with the "before" copy as it came from the camera, while the "after" photo has been enhanced by PS Elements 7.

They're online at Flickr and, if you want to see the results, go there and search for frank011-before or frank011-after, then click on "all sizes" to get the full-screen version.

(Another version of this review appears under the combo of Elements 7 and the Premier program.)

Cheers ... David

Count me as a thrilled ex-Corel (Paintshop Pro X2) user. After Corel decided to charge their loyal customers $50 for RAW file support updates I moved on.

I can't compare PE7 against PE6 and probably don't need to. Lots of users seem to be doing that already. I can compare against Paintshop Pro X2 though. You'll often hear Corel PSPX2 users take pride in their ability to get things done quickly without having to worry about Adobe's complicated workflow. "Let them have their Photoshop, we're getting real work done" is common. The other believe that has been held is that the Elements brand is for novices only, because Adobe won't ever add the truly powerful features from PS. I think PE7 destroys both these arguments, to be honest.

Organizer: I have about 5,000 photos and managing them hasn't been easy. Corel PSPX2's organizer is really just a file browser...functional but not outstanding. The big problem for me is that you click a directory and wait and wait and wait while the program creates snapshots for all of the photos within the directory. Because of this it is hard to dynamically navigate around in order to tag, move and sort photos. PE7 on the other hand, makes file organization a breeze. It takes a while the first time, to cataloge and create thumbnails. But after that you can search, tag, move, rename photos to your heart's content. I love the feature that lets you associate geographical coordinates with a tag. Once the tag is assigned to a photo, the photo now can be found on a version of Yahoo maps. Brilliant. Oh! And raw files from my Olympus E-510 are supported out of the box! No need to pay $50 extra to get this support (Corel, I'm looking at you).

Plugins: The other important feature to me is the ability to use photoshop plugins. Lack of plugin support in Lightroom is the primary reason I couldn't settle on that app. I have a bunch of great plugins that I've purchased over the years. They were always a bit wonky in Paintshop Pro, but they worked. However, now I'm seeing the true power of these plugins in PE7.

I haven't dug in to too much else yet, but I'd encourage folks to consider this program if you haven't yet. A trial is available from Adobe's website so you can see for yourself.

I'm running on an HP dv9000 series laptop, 4GB of RAM running Windows Vista 32-bit. PE7 runs smooth as butter.

I was seeking info on Elements 7 vs. 6--per posts last evening and in comment to Ms. Daneman's review, and any help would be most appreciated, but thought anyone thinking about first time purchase might want to check out a site called Top Ten Reviews (reliability unknown as first time seen)which has a piece and chart comparing several dozens of features/components between 10 different editing softwares (Top Ten reviews/software/photo editing software-- Corel, Serif, ULead, acdsee, phot suite, foto finish, photo explosion, picassa, and photo impression). True enuf that Elements comes out No. 1 but a few others are very close. I checked out the comments on Corel, which altho apparently not the Professional version still seems too difficult/time consuming. But a couple of other come close. I asked Ms. Daneman whether she or anyone reading this, aware whether they have better tutrials/easier learning curves.

I am sure the product is great... I will buy it somewhere else! I never received the product!

First, let me say for the many that do not know. Adobe Photoshop elements 6 as well as every other earlier version DOES have a manual. It just doesn't come with it, due to the fact that it would cause the box to weigh a ton considering it has over 400 pages... however it can be found in PDF format on the Adobe website, do a search for photoshop elements 6 user guide in the search bar and then cheack back in a couple of months for the version 7 guide. (amazon won't post the link)
Adobe is still processing the user guide for PSE7 and it should be out soon. Since PSE6 in essentially the same as PSE7, you can use the user guide for it until the version 7 guide is published.
I do not own PSE7 yet, but I have used PSE6 and I am currently using the trial version of PSE7. I am an advanced photoshop user and I use this software on a daily basis for my photography edits and digital photo restoration. I think the software is a little slower than version 6 but overall it is great and very useful for a photographer on a budget. It also has some added backgrounds, templates, graphics and framing options that are easy to use for the digital scrapbooking enthusiasts.
If you are upgrading there may be some things that you do not like, but they aren't enough to stop you from upgrading. If you are a new PSE user then you won't know the difference and won't be dissapointed. Happy Photoshopping!!