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Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 software combines power and simplicity so you can make your photos look extraordinary, share your life stories in unique print creations and web experiences, and easily manage and protect all your photos and video clips. more info
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New PE8 Organizer silently modifies your JPG library
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
Shortly after installing Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere Elements 8, I found that all of the JPG files in my photo library had been re-saved. I was more than a bit disturbed by this and began to dig into why this happened.
It turns out that the new PE8 Organizer has a new feature called Auto-Analyze turned on by default. This feature looks at all of your photo and video files and adds tags which are supposed to help you organize your photos and videos. Unfortunately, Auto-Analyze also takes every file in your library and re-writes them with a new date and time stamp and a size increase of 1 – 2 KB. (EXIF data on when the photo was taken is maintained.) I have not determined exactly what was modified in the files, but to me this is *totally unacceptable* behavior by a program. A photo organizing program should never touch the original JPG files except if the user explicitly gives the OK; Auto-Analyzer is installed and turned on by default when PE8 is installed, so most users will have their JPGs modified without ever knowing what happened.
There are some great features in the PE8 Editor such as Photomerge (combine the best elements of several photos into a single output) and the Quick Healing Brush (to quickly fix flaws in photos), but I can’t give a positive review to a photo editing program which modified my JPGs without my knowledge and forced me to restore my entire photo library from a backup.
Horrible!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I use for scanning pictures and documents. Horrible. Have to fight thru a persistant worthless opening page to finally open the scanning program. Works fine when finally there — but wish for a more congenial scanning product.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 – Upgrades – But Back Strokes A Little!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Adobe markets their Elements software is a lesser version of their professional-grade applications.
The Organizer is essentially a project bin with shortcuts for handling quick jobs without opening the individual programs themselves. Note that I said programs, plural, as the Organizer bridges both Photoshop and Premiere Elements 8. It is better when separate applications staying separate, and while I can understand tying everything together in a nice creative suite it somehow doesn’t work for me in it complicated process of editing/djusting imagery.
Part of it is my understanding of creating “albums” Windows already has a means of organizing photos, videos and music but those folders always wind up feeling like wasted space because applications never take proper advantage of them. The smarter play would be to have Photoshop use one of those Windows folders, make it user-configurable for more advanced users, and then implement Photoshop’s tagging feature (which lets you tag your media with keywords to make it easier to search).
The EDITOR itslef has remained largely unchanged from Photoshop Elements 7. That means it includes a large and detailed amount of the features found in its more robust and expensive cousin.
When editing photos, video options oftentimes just don’t apply, and the same for the opposite. The Share option dumping me back into the questionable Photoshop-slash-Premiere Organizer just made me feel confused. There are boatloads of options available here to publish your work, including automated means of making albums that are integrated with Kodak PhotoShare.
In the end, all this I’m forced to contend with the reality that apart from the shiny new Organizer, Photoshop Elements 8 is largely a rehash of Photoshop Elements 7 with very little in the way of changes made to the editing software that would be obviously
Users who already have Photoshop Elements 7 should pass up the opportunity to “upgrade,” since the move is going to feel more lateral than anything else and may not notice the difference at all.
Of course, you can find 7 for a lot cheaper for the price and you wouldn’t be missing all that much. GOod for the first purchase – not so good for the one’s who already have 7.
The pluses are:
Real Photoshop under the controls
Guided edit control is very detailed
Solid format support for editing
The No-So-Goods:
Overall Basically unchanged from Elements 7
The Organizer set-up is very hit-and-miss
Quirky sharing options bug me a little 12-11-09
Not a big change
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is still the best photo editing software out there, but my first impression is there’s not a lot that is new in Elements 8 compared to my Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.
The only reason I upgraded was because version 8 is compatible with Windows 7.
Photoshop’s Little Sister Gives You Plenty of Bang for Your Buck
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
We have Photoshop CS4 on two of our computers, which is all the license will allow. Sadly one is my husband’s iMac, which is supposed to be a shared machine and the other one is his MacBook Pro. I’ve got an iMac too and I have an HP Touchsmart, which has CS3 on it. I know, we have more computers in our house than the average person and I haven’t mentioned my old, but still working like a champ Ti Powerbook or the Mac Mini we have controling our TV.
I’d like Photoshop on my iMac, because I’m thinking about putting the HP machine back on Craigslist from whence it came, but I didn’t want to spend the big bucks. Enter Photoshop Elements. You can do just about everything, at least I can, with this program that you can with Photoshop for just a fraction of the price. Like Photoshop, there is a bit of a learning curve, but also like with Photoshop, it’s worth it. Plus, when you’re ready to move up, you’ll know how most of the stuff in Photoshop works.
Without a doubt Photoshop Elements is a good buy. That it’s a solid program is obvious, but you get bang for your buck here, you really do.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I replaced a much earlier version of Photoshop Elements with this version and was pleased that I was able to use it immediately by using what I knew about the older version. I have not explored the new features yet but do anticipate some additional benefits from upgrading
A Little disappointed
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I found Adobe Photoshop Elements sort of “buggy”. A few program glitches made it annoying to use. The manufacturer also bundled a free camera that simply didn’t work at all. If you can afford it, the full version of Photoshop works much better.
Bloated, slow, not worth the bother
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I have been using Photoshop Elements (PSE) 5 for some years now to do simple editing for snapshots of my family before publishing/printing them: mostly with the “Auto-fix” feature and then saving to a smaller size for email. But PSE 5 is getting long in the tooth, so I decided to upgrade to PSE 8.
What a disappointment! PSE 8 takes up FIVE times as much disk space as PSE 5 on my system (1.6 GB compared to 300 MB; for comparison, CS3, a far, far more capable and much more feature-rich program takes up 1.1 GB); needs at least 1 GB of RAM to run in anything like real time; takes twice as long to load, and seems much slower on any editing. (My system is a 2.4 Ghz AMD with 2 GB RAM running XP SP3).
The installer offers no custom install option to the user, allowing no choice of the features to be installed, other than choosing the folder for the program installation. And it installs nearly every program known to Adobe, and then some: I swear that I heard it in my kitchen, trying to pull the sink out of the counter to cram it into my computer. Then, after installation, when it seeks out updates on the Internet, it insists on downloading the update for every program by Adobe installed on the system, without asking. Did not Adobe think that perhaps I don’t want or need another set of stock photos on my system, or AIR, or Reader? Do they think that I am so stupid that I cannot get along without everything or so contemptuous that I cannot decide for myself what I need or don’t? Apparently not.
As far as the features of the program go, it would appear that the real advance of the program, as outlined on Adobe’s “What’s New and Why Should I Upgrade” website are aimed at selling membership in [...] rather than providing the user with an improved feature set of editing and organizing tools. Other reviews, notable the One-star rating by John R. Ellis, cover problems with Organizer. After reading his review, I decided not to use it, and went in and turned off the automatic cataloging feature, so I thought. I had occasion to go back to Organizer, and found it happily going through my hard drive, seeking out every photo I had on the system. And while the new editor is an improvement over PSE 5 — it is not by much, and only in such things as stitching photos into a panorama, or removing the background in a portrait, or inserting people into other photos, a la Forrest Gump.
PSE 8 could have been a wonderful program, but given the small improvement in the Editor, the absolute uselessness of the so-called Organizer, the bloat in installed size, and the lack of any customization during installation to cut down on unwanted/unneeded features, I cannot recommend this as an upgrade. If you are currently using an older edition of PSE, I would urge you to take a long and hard look at what this offers before spending any money on it.
If, OTOH, you have no photo editor and need one, then unfortunately you are pretty well stuck with PSE, Corel’s Paint Shop Pro Photo, or Nikon’s Capture NX 2. I would urge you to download the trial versions of these and try them before deciding.
Great for the Price
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
As a user of Elements 6, I am pleased with this upgrade. Elements 8 loads much faster and adds a few worthwhile features lacking in 6. Whether it’s worth the expenditure over 6 is debatable. Stand alone though, it’s an incredible set of tools for the price!
Great tool for photo manipulation for average user
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve never owned an edition of Photoshop Elements before, so I cannot compare this to previous versions or how it compares as an upgrade. I have used Adobe Photoshop CS3 at work and wanted something like it at home. However, the full Photoshop program costs upwards of $500, and elements is under $100.
For the average home user like me, Elements is more than enough. I won’t go into details of the program as reviewer Joanna and Amazon’s specs cover all the key points. What I will mention is who should consider the full Photoshop program instead of elements – graphic design students and artistic professionals such as web designers, photographers and the like. The main advantages that the full version has over elements are more advanced layer style manipulation, color management, web features and advanced text formatting. Photoshop also allows CMYK and LAB color modes and features that work with high-bit images. Yet, these tools have a steep learning curve and most people won’t need them. On the other hand, Elements has some advantages that are specifically valuable to the amateur and non-professional.
The most important tool (I think) isn’t really about photo manipulation at all – the organizer. For people with lots of images such as family photos, vacation photos etc, Elements has an automatic “organize my images for me” feature. Plus, the optional online storage allows for backups and more space. Keyword tagging helps users manage their photo library, allowing for easy searching and sharing in slide shows, video CDs, cards, email, calendars, and the list goes on. Tools such as the cookie cutter, drop in frames, and automatic red eye removal are all designed for the novice to jump right in. The program has a smaller learning curve and clean, well organized interfaces.
Overall, this is an excellent program for beginners, intermediates and those on a budget who can’t afford the full blown Photoshop. Recommended.
Works Great with Win 7
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
If your new computer runs on Windows 7, this is the photoediting software for you.
Poor upgrade
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I have been using various versions PSE for over 5 years now and this is the first time I’ve had a problem. Installed it on a brand new high end laptop with 2.8 GHz core 2 duo processor, 6 GB of Ram, 1 GB video card and a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive running Windows 7 professional 64-Bit. It installed without errors, and imported all my photos. That was the end of it working. After that, the Organizer freezes every time it’s launched and says generating Thumbnails. Let it run for over 24 hours thinking it was actually doing something, but nada. No error messages or log files to help pinpoint a problem. Customer support is useless. Tried using their online support which has a list of 27 different things that are poorly documented to try which might fix the problem. The list includes options like editing the registry and turning every other application off including those running in the background like antivirus software and the like. Seems more like beta software.
Stop Whining
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
All you folks who supposedly are ‘long-time users’ of PSE and are whining about the Editor, Organizer and ‘splash’ page at the beginning should take the time to learn how to separate the 3 items out so that you have only to open the Editor, much faster and easier. One is also able to pop back and forth between the Organizer and Editor this way with 2 windows open.
Also, I have never had PSE reassign or rename or in any other way ‘take possession’ of my images.
The missing manual
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I would give this piece of software a higher rating but the tenancy of software companies selling the software without even a rudimentary manual is more then annoying. Give us a dang manual and a upgrade path to Photoshop.
Elements 8
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I was disappointed in this product.
It is inconvenient to have to view the intro page every time you launch.
It should allow you to go directly to the editor mode.
The program is slow to load.
The file handling is clumsy.
On a positive note, the photo manipulating features work well.
lost cause
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I don’t know how this program works or if it’s any good. I downloaded the program and couldn’t get it to work. I colled tec.support and talked to 5 different people and it still wont work.They wanted me to exchange it and try again, yea right. Two and a half hours and they said they didn’t understand why the program wouldn’t work.I’m sending it back and I will start looking again for a program that makes slide shows that really works. I should have tryed a free download version, it would have saved me alot of time and alot of name calling. This program is not worth the time and effort to download it. I told one of my friends not to bother with this program.
Very Good
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have only used Adobe’s Home edition previously, so this was far and away a better product.
I certainly would not pay for the full Photoshop, since this is even more than I need as an
amateur.
slower than molasses
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I’ve had all of the previews versions since about version 4 – this one is so slow, when I have work to do, I click to open it first thing in the AM and come back later in hopes that it has come alive. I have a lot of trouble getting the edit features to open. It’s quirky – I’m looking at the Nikon software that came with my D-300 in hopes it is more responsive.
PSE 8
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I upgraded from PSE 2 and I have to say the upgrades are amazing, especially how photos can be organized. I haven’t done too much yet using editing but what I have used so far I liked. I suggest downloading the trial version. You then can add and delete photos on PSE 8 and try out the different features without removing them from your hard drive.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Received in great time and product as stated. Gave as a gift so i did not personally use the program.
Adobe Elements 8
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
As with all Adobe products there is a learning curve, but not as steep as with any of the Adobe Photoshop products. Making adjustments to pictures is not a difficult task and I also picked up Elements 8 for dummies that also help reduce the curve of learning. I highly recommend this product to someone who is a hobbiest or beginning pro photographer. Your RAW photos may be good but this will help make them brilliant.
Excellent value,great product
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Upgraded from earlier version which came with a camera I bought. Positive improvements and easier to work with. While it does not have all the listed capabilities of regular Photoshop, it didn’t break my bank account either. An exceptional value for the price paid. Provides everything I currently need as a serious amateur photographer who is still learning to shift from film to the vagaries of digital photography. Highly recommended!
Great as Always
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The product is excellent. The service is superb. And delivery was on time. The Adobe Elements 8 is excellent. It has many great features and plenty of help. With the Amazon order I was able to track my shipment all the way home!
Too new to evaluate
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I’ve barely got this installed on my computer, and don’t feel it’s fair to offer my evaluation at this time. I can however suggest that you not but direct from Adobe, as you will pay more for the product, and their record keeping and customer service is terrible.
Amazing product!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I bought this for my wife after deciding she didn’t need a full version of Photoshop CS, and it has been amazing for her! Very easy to pick up and use after you sit with it for a little bit to realize the many layers you can use. This is a great product for people who want to do some digital scrapbooking, photo editing, etc. Buy it now!