Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 (PC/Mac)

I have been using Photoshop Elements since 2004 and have upgraded to the latest version every year since version 4. I have tried every other photo-editing program over the years but Elements has the best combination of power and usability of any. It is ideal photo-editing for digital photographers providing most of the tools from Photoshop plus many features which Photoshop users envy. I also use it for adjusting photographs of paintings for a local art society and Elements is the only software I have found which is capable of refining colour to the demanding standards of artists.

Elements comes with a powerful organiser/gallery application which is capable of dealing with many of thousands or photographs. I have 15,000 photos in the Organizer and every time I upload more photos I use keywords for places, people, events etc. This is really easy to do and together with the timeline function makes sure that I can easily find any photo I am looking for. This version of the organizer has new functions for searching by people, places, events and georgraphical locations which improve the search system even more.

There are four levels of editing available - photofix (quick and easy fixes for common problems from the Organizer screen) , then in the Editor itself there is "quick" for many basic fixes, "guided" which provides step by step guided edits, and "expert" for those who wish to use all the layers/filters/masks etc which are the main reason you would use Elements rather than Picasa or other free software.

Version 11 is fast and it all hangs together really well. There are lots of small improvements - for example, I find the rationalisation of selection tools very welcome and much overdue. The new tools options bar along the bottom of the edit screen is much easier to use and I appreciate the larger size of everything. In a program as comprehensive as Elements it is perhaps inevitable that a small number of bugs will slip through testing but I have yet to find any in this version. The general consensus on Elements forums is that this version has fixed the known bugs from previous versions.

One important point is that Adobe Camera Raw is much improved in this version - it's worth reading the documentation if you wish to use this feature (i.e. you take your photos in RAW format rather than JPG). For example, the old fill light slider has now been dropped and instead the Exposure slider works with the Shadows slider to produce much improved effects with this version.

I have not always felt that the new versions add much to previous versions and last year I came to the conclusion that Elements was becoming too much of a mish-mash of unrelated functions (although it was still the best photo-editing package if you didn't want to go for full Photoshop). I am pleased to say that this year, version 11 is the first upgrade for a long time which I am really pleased with. Its a great improvement on earlier versions. It looks better and feels better - it gives a much better impression of being a fully integrated package with real logic behind the design.

One advantage of using Photoshop Elements is the wide range of training material available. I recommend buying Photoshop Elements 11: The Missing Manual (Missing Manuals) (Missing Manuals) by Barbara Brundage which goes into a tremendous level of detail in describing the functions of this powerful software. Also watch out for Scott Kelby's book on Elements 11 when it comes out as these are always excellent.

Finally, if you want to get serious about colour, it might be worth buying a monitor calibrator such as Pantone Huey PRO. This will ensure that your monitor is adjusted for colour and ambient light. Without making sure that your monitor is calibrated correctly you are shooting in the dark when it comes to colour correction.

The level of photo manipulation is getting ever more advanced. This programme promises, and delivers, full adaptability with seamless editing. I have 'photoshopped' in a very basic way for years now. I am not up there with digital masters, I do find it refreshing that I don't have to understand the intricacies of layering, light levelling, matt/gloss balance, pixelation...the mind boggles indeed. I just want to be able to erase the idiot in the background gurning behind my family, I want to be able to get the smudge of chocalate from my sons chin, I want to be able to see things in a perfect way in my photos. Don't get me wrong, there will always be a place for a mucky child photo or two because their imperfections are so precious, but nice in a while I want a photo thats perfect.
This software isn't incredibly expensive. Its easy to navigate, it will give you real results. Don't be afraid of it because it isn't anything you have done before. There are tons of good online forums for Adobe and its products with very experienced users on hand to help. Whats also good to know is, as long as you save your pictures in different names each time you work on them, you never lose the original if you aren't pleased with the results.
Picturesque indeed.

Adobe Photoshop Elements is now firmly established as the market leader for home users serious about photograph editing. This latest version 11 has had a major interface upgrade over the previous version 10, and now has a more pleasant light grey colour scheme. As before, Elements 11 is split into the Photo Editor and the Photo Organizer applications (with options to flip between the two for the full photo editor). In Elements Organizer once I found 'Folder Hierachy' mode, it was easy to right-click 'import media' and load whole directories of photos in as the thumbnails. The revamped Organizer is much improved and there's the usual Organizer photo folder search options, including face recognition for tagged people (which can be a bit hit and miss), photo metadata (e.g. camera type), and tagged locations.

Right click over an image in Organizer and you can jump to the Elements 11 Photo-Editor. Once loaded the Photo Editor is now clearly separated into Quick, Guided and Expert modes. Quick mode just has 'smart fix', exposure, colour balance, and sharpen. Next there's the Guided wizard mode to help you through editing step by step, and finally there's the powerful Expert mode that switches to the full photo editor (giving you access to many of the same photo editing tools as in Photoshop CS6, albeit in simpler cut down form).

The window buttons are now larger and easier to see, and the new menu structure is more logical, e.g. Photomerge has now easier to find in the top menu of 'Enhanced'. Usefully the Organizer and Editor both stay open so you can quickly flip between the two. In fact the new interface is so superior to Elements 9 & 10, personally I upgraded for this reason alone. Otherwise though there's not so much in terms of new tools or features over Elements 9/10: a few new filter effects (The Comic 'illustration' Filter being particularly good), a simple Vignette tool (giving a engraved bookplate effect), and a 'refine edge' tool to further help you select objects within the photo for say cutting and pasting or transforming in shape.

All the old Elements Image Editor tools are there: tools streamlined to make colour, contrast and lighting adjustments even quicker (useful for old faded 35mm slide scans). You can use the 'quickfix' options or you can load the full image editor for greater manual control, such as adjust sharpness, levels, hue and skin colour/tones. Standard tools include crop and adjust image size (pixels) and you can just edit selected areas of the photos using various object selection tools. The software will also integrate with slide/flatbed scanner interfaces if you are into scanning film or paper, and the shadow/highlight tool is essential for bringing out detail in shadows from any slide/negative scan. Elements can handle large RAW camera images and you can correct lens barrel distortion using the specific tool or various generic `Transform' tools. Plus there's layers and layer masks for complex photo manipulation like copying a smiling head from one photo into another, and tools to do things like remove a traffic sign from the scene. You can recompose [shrink] photos without losing detail, and use Photomerge to create fantastic panoramas or merge/delete objects from a sequence of photos. Once installed Elements 11 auto-updates itself to patch bugs or add features. With our Windows 7 64-bit PCs I found Photoshop Elements 11 worked perfectly - you can download a fully working version from Adobe for a free 30 day trail (it runs under Window XP, Vista, Windows 7 and 8, and Apple Mac OsX 10.6 or above).

Elements 11 Organiser is simpler than of old, largely as you have to manually point and select folders for import (although subfolders can be grabbed at the same time), so it works more like a traditional file directory tree system, which I like, as it's quite efficient and speedy. You can sort the photo collection into media, people, place or events (e.g. weddings) if you wish. Photos with embedded geolocation can automatically be tagged onto Google maps, so you can also sort by location. Once you create albums you can share these quickly on-line with a click or two. In fact overall Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 has become so much better than the similarly priced opposition that its major competitor is now the sibling Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 (that offers faster Organizer/Editing speed and better Raw file support, albeit with simpler Photo Editing options). Other alternatives include the various increasingly powerful photo apps for tablets that offer cheap quality image editing solutions for casual users, and there is Corel's Paintshop Pro X5 Ultimate which offers extras like superior filters and batch processing, but it's complex to learn and slow even by Elements standards. Experienced Photoshop CS6 Extended users will find Photoshop Elements 11 easier to use, as it shares similar tool names and menu structures. At work we use both Photoshop CS6 and Elements 11, which is on many workstations where the high cost of CS6 can't be justified. Adobe's Elements 11 help is quite good, and there's plenty of free advice on the internet.

You can buy Photoshop Elements 11 as a cheap double pack with the excellent Adobe Premiere Elements 11 [video editing] - and Adobe offer educational discounts for schoolkids/teachers/students/Colleges, with big savings for Photoshop CS6 Extended and Adobe Design Premium as well.