Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 [Old Version]

Average customer rating: 3.5

Makes You want to Punch Your Screen
Decent product, but overrated
I'm satisfied
Only for the digitally educated folks
A great alternative to Photoshop...

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Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 [Old Version]

Manufacturer: Adobe
Product Group: Software
Binding: CD-ROM
ASIN: B0002UDM2Q
2004-10-18

Related Categories:

Photo Editing

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Windows 98 & ME

Product Description

Adobe Elements 3.0 Image Edit Software for Windows is the third version of this amazingly popular digital image and photo editing application. It's no wonder really. Adobe's Photoshop Elements series is geared to you, the casual user, seeking access to image enhancement tools that are simple and easy. While ease-of-use is the key, PE3 adds more power. Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 software now provides powerful photo editing functionality plus intuitive organizing and sharing capabilities. Make quick fixes when you need to or use advanced editing options when you want more control. Organize the way you want and show off your creativity with new dynamic slide shows, themed photo e-mail, and more. Make compelling slide shows with transitions, captions, music, and narration Send your photos displayed within your e-mail instead of as attachments, and include decorative backgrounds and frames in a variety of themes Make the most of your valuable photo paper by printing high-quality pages in any layout you wantÂ?individual or multiple photos

Customer Reviews:

Makes You want to Punch Your Screen.......2007-04-05

I know that Photoshop is considered the gold standard of photo editing software and all that, but man, does Elements have to be so frustrating to use? Has any programmer that built this code ever actually tried to use it to fix a picture?

I wanted something more powerful than the free photo software available online or that comes with a new camera, but I didn't want to have to sign up for a Continuing Education class, either. Yes, it seems powerful, and all that, but it is so hard to get up to speed to know whether you are harnessing all that power. I am not computer illiterate. I use Excel, AutoCAD, databases, etc, and lot of job-proprietary software at my work every day.

I bought 3.0 after reading reviews of how buggy 4.0 was. Elements 5.0 had not yet come out.

A Few Frustrations:

(1)Adobe did not see fit to provide a manual with the software, so I have now spent just about as much on 3rd party manuals as I did on the software. There is a short "getting started" manual. It is useless.

(2) The Organizer. Why did Adobe think they were so much more clever than Microsoft and come up with another way to manage your files? I simply want to go to a directory tree, open a file, work on it and then have the option to overwrite with Save or make a new one with Save As. No, Elements wants you to work in the Organizer, where you have to labor to find the actual location of the file you have up.

(3) The Share functions. The photo album utility is surprisingly inflexible as to the sizes and orientations of the pictures printed out. I printed out a number of pages with 4 photos per page, and the images came out about 2" x 2" each. You can stretch them bigger, BUT YOU MUST DO EVERY ONE INDIVIDUALLY, not as a batch. The HP Photosmart that came free with my printer does a much better job here.

(4) DVD burning. I have yet to succesfully burn a photo DVD with the included burner. Elements locks up every time.

(5) New Version Every Year. Why? Just get one right.

(6) Resource Hog. I had to double the RAM in my computer just to get this thing to run.

(7) No Tutorials. I could be made a little happier if I had some idea as to the best workflow to follow to work on a picture. Okay, I open up a file needing some work. Do I want to work on colors or brightness first? What about Layers, when is the best time to put them in? When is the best time to Sharpen? Save? Convert from this file format to another?

(8) Saving Files. Be aware that I have not found a way to prevent saving multiple copies of a file whether I want to or not. Every time I Save, whether I want to overwrite or not, I get a new file. If you are working with a HUGE .PSP or .RAW file, this gets to be a big problem. A 1MB .JPG file can easily become a 100MB - that's right - 100MB .PSP file. Better have a big hard drive. This leads to:

(9) Deleting Files. Never delete or move to another directory a photo again through Windows Explorer or My Computer. Use the Organizer. It freaks Elements out to not find a file there that was there the last time it was started up. It will make your life unhappy.

(10) Adobe Gamma. It would have been nice to know about that little feature BEFORE I worked on about 300 pictures!

This is just a start.

It is easy to kick MS software, but there is one thing about MS products, they know how to make them intuitive. Adobe, fugedabodit!

Decent product, but overrated.......2006-04-18

This is a decent product, but there are cheaper and easier-to-use products out there that are a better fit for the average person who simply wants to organize, share, and print/produce digital pictures. Below are my pros and cons:

Pros:
1. Easy import of photos directly from camera.
2. Pretty good interface for viewing/organizing photos in a central location (a little busy at first but fairly intuitive once you get the hang of it)
3. Easy sharing options (again, once you figure out where the right buttons are).
4. A dizzying array of photo editing tools.

Cons:
1. A dizzying array of photo editing tools. If you are planning projects which require a lot of layout, editing, layering, etc then you might need some of these, but if you are like 95% of the rest of us digital camera owners and just want to do some basic editing (redeye removal, etc.) before sharing then you will find that most of this stuff is overkill.
2. Very slow program startup time. It is baffling as to why, but this seems to be the norm for all Adobe products.
3. Mediocre product integration. If you have a picture in the viewer and want to do some quick editing, then it opens a different editing module. This editing module is "integrated" in that there are buttons for easily switching between the viewer and the editor, but on my brand-spanking-new computer it still takes 3-5 seconds each time I want to launch the editing module.
4. Not as intuitive as all the professional reviews say it is. Don't get me wrong, it is fairly well layed out once you get the hang of it, but if you are new to photo organization/management then don't expect to just jump in; it will take some ramp-up time. There are some very good, free third party tutorials available online to help you with this (which nicely fill in the gaps left by the virtually worthless Adobe documentation).

In summary, the best word I have to describe this product is... annoying. Bottom-line: It is a decent product but fails to live up to the hype. For $100 I expect something much more intuitive out of the box, with much tighter integration.

If you have projects in mind where you'll be working with photo layouts, etc then I would recommend you check this product out, as it does have a deep feature list. But if you're just trying to get those photos off of your digital camera, get rid of that redeye, and then e-mail them to friends/family or upload them to one of the online services, then I would check out Picasa 2.0 (free from Google) before investing $100 in this product.

I'm satisfied.......2006-01-13

I've had this program for a year. I give it a four because it's not perfect, but it's very good. I edited a professional portrait for my first project. It turned out very well. I have a 16x20 of it hanging on my wall, so even blown up, the detail is very good. From there I've cut people out of one picture, and put them on an edited background, along with other possibilities.
I don't like the cutout with anchor tool; touch the edge of the picture, and it's all over the place. Instead, I use the eraser. I can erase away all unwanted details. I also like the stamp tool. It gives all the inuendos of shades and ripples so it looks like the original picture.
This is an extensive program. The possibilities are endless. I can use it as a beginner, and continually learn - - I don't have to understand it all at once.
I bought the bundle. I've made about a hundred movies with Premiere Elements 1.0. It likes over 40gb free hard drive and 1.5gb ram to run smoothly. Anything less is frustrating because it crashes constantly. Nonetheless, the two programs are compatible. I love having an image in Premiere Elements, and being able to edit it in Photoshop without removing the picture from either program.
AND I forgot to mention that Photoshop can import video clips to allow you to separate one frame, and you can edit that photo. It's all powerful software with the equipment we have to operate it. It's all very, very good.

Only for the digitally educated folks.......2006-01-05

I bought this product because it had such great reviews and it appeared to meet all my needs. I have had it over 6 months now and I still can't get the hang of it. It is NOT user friendly. I try to use all the help features but it takes so long to do just one little thing that by the time I am done editing one pic - I am burnt out and don't want to touch it for awhile.

If you are already up to speed with this type of software - it is really cool - but for new users - stay away from it.

A great alternative to Photoshop..........2005-12-05

... for poorer folks! I have used the full version of Photoshop in my work, but when I wanted to buy a copy to use at home, I couldn't swallow the price. Luckily, there is Photoshop Elements.

I have been able to do nearly everything I want to do with my photos. It works pretty much the same way as the full version, so if you know your way around Photoshop, you should have no problems here. There are plenty of filters and adjustment tools, so you can make your digital photos or artwork look great.

Of course, it doesn't have all the features of the full version. But for most people, Photoshop Elements will be enough. It offers what its title implies: the main elements of good photo correction and manipulation software.

I highly recommend it.

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