Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 7 | List Price: $149.99
Discount Price: $103.98
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Platform: Windows Vista, Windows XP
Brand: Adobe
Binding: CD-ROM
Release Date: 2008-10-13
Features: - Combines two powerful yet easy-to-use products at a great value, so you can tell amazing stories with photos and videos
- Stay connected with your favorite people and memories with new Photoshop.com membership
- Protect your photos and videos with automatic online backup and 2GB of storage, enough for up to 1,500 photos or 25 minutes of DVD-quality video
- Access your photos and videos anywhere you are
- Share your photos in fun, interactive ways via invitation-only Online Albums
Premiere Elements 7 Needs Improvement [Posted on 2008-12-23]
I obtained this software package for two purposes. First, to clean up digital pictures and second, to transfer ACVHD files from our Sony HDR-SR12 10.2MP 120GB High Definition Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom to MPEG 4 format. Adobe's Photoshop Elements is an excellent image editing package. The "auto" correction capabilities are superb. It effortlessly fixes red-eye and sharpens images like I've never seen before (and without creating pixilation or artifacts). The Photoshop Elements user interface is easy to navigate and features are intuitive to use. But on the other hand, the Premiere Elements 7 is hard to use and extremely slow to convert video files. Worse, the software was unable to connect to our Sony HDR-SR12. As a comparison, I used Sony's Picture Motion Browser (version 3.3.00.09300) software to transfer and edit HD video content. This software was bundled free with the Sony HDR-SR12 and in many ways, exceeds Premiere Elements 7's ability to edit, compose, and compile video. For example, Sony's Picture Motion Browser takes about 20 minutes on a dual core Intel processor (Vista SP2 32 bit) to compile 30 minutes of ACVHD 1080i content to a single DVD-RW disc. It takes another 10 minutes to compile the same ACVHD content to MPEG2 files. Premiere Elements 7 takes 3x longer to accomplish the same tasks. In addition, Sony's Picture Motion Browser is much more intuitive to use than Premiere Elements 7.
I'm not a video editing enthusiast but I do appreciate software package that cam easily execute basic tasks like file conversion, device connections, and disc creation. I recommend that you look at other video editing packages. With regard to Photoshop Elements, you can purchase that separately and I have found it functional and easy to use.
Same software as version 6. Do not buy. [Posted on 2008-12-24]
Ok, so maybe the title of this review is a little exaggerated, but overall it's fairly truthful. When I first got version 6 I was amazed at how many new features had been added to the software. As of yet, I haven't even been able to find a single new feature in version 7 that I care about. The chances mostly come in the form of social networking additions, although I'd guess that if you know how to use photoshop then you also know how to do these functions on your own, so I'm not sure what the point is exactly.
Anyways, if you have version 6, DO NOT UPGRADE to this. If you are first time photoshop user I'd suggest that you search and see if you can get a better price on version 6 because you aren't missing anything here. If you can't get a better price, well there's technically nothing wrong with version 7 so go for it.
cameras and action [Posted on 2008-12-24]
Bought this as a gift for my daughter after using it myself for about 3 years. It's pretty easy to use and I have enjoyed creating photographs and videos much more so than with previous software I have had.
Rushed to market [Posted on 2008-12-25]
Pros: Nice amount of features, pretty interface, simple once you get used to it
Cons: Crashes constantly on Vista, Some features require you to "upgrade" to a Photoshop.com account (like menu themes!), some features work sometimes and sometimes don't (like effects on text, it will allow you to add them to some but not others with no explanation!), resource hog (on a 3ghz Core2Duo w/ 4 gigs RAM)
Bottom Line: Avoid, version 6 was more stable and more complete in my opinion. I was expecting more from Adobe.
A Review By Someone Who Knows What He is Talking About [Posted on 2009-01-03]
After installing and playing around with these programs I decided to wait for the holidays to post a review. My son studied film editing in college, created a music video which made it to the web, and prepares special features for a large church in the Phoenix area. Since he was due home for the holidays I felt the readers of this review could profit from more from his thoughts than my little uninformed opinion.
Following are his thoughts:
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Photoshop Elements
Program highs: Very intuitive and easy to use. Most users can probably navigate this program without needing to consult a manual. The system offers a robust variety of editing tools to enhance users' pictures. One of the program's best features is a tool that allows you to instantly capture and organize all picture files on your computer.
Program lows: I did not experience any detractors to the software while I was using it
4.5/5 Stars.
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Premiere Elements 7
Program highs: Also very intuitive though user's without a background in film media may need to consult the manual. Like Photoshop it is easy to capture and organize all of your previously stored data. A significant upgrade is the ability to capture media from multiple venues such as DV, CD, Cell phones and more. This versatility will be a boon for users previously frustrated by PC editing programs' compatibility issues.
Program lows: The system experienced some slowness while it was being used, nothing terrible but not quite at the level of Photoshop Elements in speed. The system also experienced a fatal exception while it was being used causing the program to autocrash while editing was in progress. These issues however may be mitigated by ensuring your system meets the proper requirements and that you have plenty of memory to run these programs.
3.5/5 Stars.
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