Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

Comments
There ought to be a good metaphor for Photoshop, but Swiss Army Knife does not quite
capture its versatility or its serious professionalism. It is more like a Super Jumbo Jet,
with an instrument panel to match. Reviewers tend to pay homage to it, rather than
review it, yet there are occasional dissenting voices. Erik Vlietinck of IT-Enquirer found
the new collapsible palettes to be “nerve-wrecking,” which categorized him as a member
of the “laity” in the eyes of some. When religious terminology is used for criticizing
critics, you know some truth has been spoken. Or has it? PC World’s Alan Stafford said
the refinement he liked most one year (2007) was “the new palette treatment,” the very
feature most disliked by the other reviewer.
Yes, Photoshop is a great product, but it is clearly not ideal for everyone, and if you lack
the patience to learn it you will be better advised to look at the other products in this
book. There is also the question of price. It is expensive, but a good value in comparison
to most single-feature products, including many of its own plug-ins. UK users must
surely resent having to pay double the U.S. price at the Adobe UK store. All those bits
are so heavy to transport across the Atlantic!
Version: CS3 (2008)
OS: Windows XP with SP2 or Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise (certified
for 32-bit editions); Mac OS X 10.4.8–10.5 (Leopard)
RAM: 512MB and 64MB of video RAM
Supported file formats: Most RAW formats; many others, including PSD, BMP, Cineon, JPEG,
JPEG 2000, OpenEXR, PNG, TGA, and TIFF
Price level: Approx. $650
Address: Adobe Systems Incorporated, 345 Park Avenue, San Jose, CA 95110-2704, United States
www.adobe.com
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Vendor: Adobe Systems
Purpose: The consumer version of Photoshop for casual photographers
Chapter 10 ■ Image Editors 121
Description
Adobe Photoshop Elements is aimed at the “casual photographer,” by which Adobe
means the person who takes occasional pictures rather than one who takes them
without care. Photoshop Elements is quite capable of taking very good care of your
photos, with a substantial feature set including quick-fix adjustment of color, contrast,
and lighting, auto red-eye removal and skin tone enhancement, correction for camera
lens distortions, sharpening, fine-tuning of exposure, retouching with healing brushes,
and shadow and highlight recovery. Just as in the main program you can work on specific
parts of the image, using dodge, burn, and sponge tools. Support for 16-bits per