Despite being a passionate digital shutterbug, I've never actually used any previous versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements. I 'seemed' to be happy enough with the various packages from Ulead and Corel as they 'seemed' to give me what I needed. But recently I decided to purchase a new DSLR camera and at the same time I decided to finally give Elements a go. All I can say is wow! How much I've been missing out on. Adobe Photoshop Elements doesn't only give you what you need, but also gives you what you want, everything you could possibly ever want, to such a degree that I spent day's going through all my old digital images, retouching them in places, and experimenting with them with the mammoth amounts of tools and options at my fingertips.
I immersed myself in the mono conversion options and found that will little work, I could produced vibrant images with good contrast for stunning photos. I've took a lot of portraits in the past and converting them to black and white, as well as changing the back ground has seriously shown me what this package is capable of in terms of photo enhancement. I've found that the Shadow/Highlight tool is very useful for bringing out images, especially with landscapes (I don't know if that is the intended use for the tool, but it seems to work brilliantly.) I'm glad that the software can process RAW files, as my new camera gives me that option and personally I would prefer to use it to give me greater flexibility. I also found elements to be very user friendly, in no time I seemed to know what I was doing.
There was a slight problem activating the program over the internet, as I kept getting various error messages, but I did manage to activate it over the phone with Adobe who were very helpful. Not to mention the fact that I didn't have to wait on hold for an eternity, unlike my internet service provider (AOL since you asked.) In the past I've heard people say that Elements was just a severely cut-down version of Adobe Photoshop. But after using Elements for just over a month, I have to say that I am extremely happy with the program and am now a dedicated fan. I would strongly recommend it to you.