Elements 8 Bundle

Take advantage of Adobe’s special 2009 introductory prices through Dec 21^st

“Black Friday” week 2009 (November. 23^rd to November 30^th), Adobe.com or the Adobe call center will offer $50 ($30 mail-in rebate + $20 instant) off the bundle with or without Plus or $40 ($20 mail-in rebate + $20 instant) off Photoshop Element 8 (Win or Mac). Free shipping (no promotion code is needed).

From December 7^th to December 21^st, you can buy the bundle at Adobe.com or the Adobe call center at $40 off the bundle ($30 mail-in rebate + $10 instant) with or without Plus or at $30 off ($20 mail-in rebate + $10 instant) Photoshop Element 8 for Mac only. Free shipping (no promo code is needed).

Okay, image makers. Now that you’ve finally gotten your arms around digital photography, the techno-revolution is about to take you through yet another metamorphosis. You’ll soon be known to family and friends not just as a photographer, but as a photographer/videographer! For, whether you’re ready or not, most new good cameras coming to market are merging the once distinct worlds of still and video into a homogenous blend of both. It’s happening because the amateur and pro markets really want it, not just because the manufacturers are trying to outdo each other (although that’s true, too). Wedding and event photographers are besting their competitors in bringing in new clients when they can deliver both visual forms in their packages. So, too, are other photography professionals in commercial, fashion…heck, just about every genre. And, enthusiasts are driving it as well. Today’s most entertaining and compelling “slide show” programs at conferences, clubs and associations are no longer strictly comprised of stills with a soundtrack. Video clips let you add a fresh animated dimension to enliven your presentations. Not convinced if the movement doesn’t have its own conference and trade show? Check out the Collision Conference, an industry event already dedicated to this convergence of still and video.

To help you keep up with this fast-moving trend and easily handle both kinds of visual mediums, Adobe brought together two software packages in one bundle that will meet the editing needs of almost every enthusiast: their slick, new easy-to-use Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8, available separately or bundled together in a more cost effective combination buy. These latest versions are promoted as compatible with 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 so I put them through their paces on both an older model Microsoft Windows XP (SP2) system and a current model desktop running Windows Vista-64. (If it works on Vista-64, it’ll work on Windows 7 64-bit, too.)

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 performed beautifully on both computers. As a Photoshop instructor, I find this newest version especially attractive for users because it sports a more intuitive workspace, one that will let you follow along far more easily in a Photoshop class or workshop without having the search in much different places to find tools, sliders or other image adjustments. And, if you haven’t updated you PC yet because your latest camera “ate” your budget, you’re most likely still “good to go” with this excellent update unless you’re running a truly ancient machine that really belongs in a museum by now.

Video edits with Adobe Premiere Elements 8 absolutely “flew” on my HP m8530f Vista-64-based system with its 2.2Ghz Quad Core Phenom 9550 CPU and 5 GB of RAM. It’s a “must have” if you’ve entered the world of digital video/video clips, use older versions of Premiere Elements or other video editing software, and want to stay at the cutting edge of the technology’s capabilities. But, video editing and composing always did and still does take considerably more PC “power” than does editing still pictures. Don’t try to squeeze by on an old, underpowered PC because your video software will be handle only the shortest of clips or render so slowly that you’ll be in a nursing home by the time it finishes. If it finishes at all. Read the minimum requirements carefully on the Premiere Elements 8 box and don’t try to squeeze by using a marginal system. Adobe Premiere Elements 8 is great, but it takes a fairly hefty system to run it well, especially editing and rendering video of any length beyond the briefest clip. It choked my old 32-bit Windows XP SP2-based laptop even though it has a 2.8GHz CPU and 2GB of RAM. (Keep current about ongoing experiences with these new Adobe software packages; members of camera clubs affiliated with the New England Camera Club Council should check in periodically at the My Digital Photo & Video Forum under its Photoshop and Video Editing sections. Only registered active members of NECCC camera clubs can access the Forum.)

Before we dig in more deeply, a final overview note: I was delighted to discover that Adobe has evolved to a more intuitive and familiar common look across its application workspaces and interfaces. This will go a long way in reducing confusion on first using a new Adobe application. I’m normally an Adobe Lightroom and CS4 user (Photoshop, Premiere and Illustrator), but I had no trouble at all immediately working smoothly and quickly in Adobe Elements 8. The Adobe Elements Organizer and Photoshop Elements 8 desktops strongly resemble their sister applications’ workspaces right down to the position and style of the Tool and palette panels. The Adobe Elements 8 desktop made me feel right at home. This will go a l-o-n-g way in helping photo educators. Now, their students can more easily follow along whether they’re using CS or Elements versions at classes, workshops and camera club programs.

Illustrations 1 and 2: Image thumbnails in Adobe Elements Organizer can be resized from small (above) to large (below) using a simple slider like the ones found in Adobe’s Lightroom or Bridge.

Elements Organizer serves as a common asset manager for your stills and videos so let’s start here. With it, you can quickly locate images and clips that you’ve previously tagged. Or let the Auto-Analyzer automatically tag them for you. New Auto Analyzer “tags” photos by type and by person through facial recognition. (Elements leads its bigger siblings with that innovation.)

Elements Organizer’s color coded tabs provide quick access to the full capabilities of Adobe Premiere Elements 8 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. From Organizer, you can manage your media – stills and video clips -- in one convenient media management hub. Here, you can sort, tag, and search your videos and photos. And you can protect them with automatic online backup -- you get 2GB of free storage.

The Adobe Elements 8 bundle delivers cost-effective access to powerful, easy-to-use editing options for both videos and photos. You can buy the applications individually, of course. But think twice before you do because you may find you’ll be using both Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere Elements 8 to produce prints, slide shows and videos (Instant Movies) sooner than you think!

If you’re still wondering why you should buy the newest version and not get by with an older one, here are some of the…

Photomerge in Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 lets you combine multiple exposures of an extended dynamic range scene into one image that shows the best of each exposure. This is a great tool if you really want your pictures to stand out from everyone else’s traditional exposures. Really! No kidding!

You can compress or stretch your scene to recompose it or resize it without distorting its key subjects.

You can back up and synchronize marked photos, albums and catalogs automatically on Photoshop.com servers using the Backup/Synchronization Wizard. (And it really is easy.)

In addition to 2GB of free online storage and automatic online backup if you opt to use it, you also get a personal URL for sharing your images with others.

Your catalogs from previous versions of Photoshop Elements are converted for version 8 without destroying or altering the old ones.

And you receive online delivery of periodic new tutorials like these designed for all users:

If you join the optional Photoshop Plus membership, you additionally get exclusive gold ribbon-marked tutorials like:

Needless to say, you can do all this in Elements 8, giving you noticeably more control over you image editing than you have in Lightroom. In fact, there’s very little that you can’t do in this latest version of Photoshop Elements which will admirably serve all but the most advanced digital image makers.

Let’s begin with Adobe Photoshop Elements’ EDIT tab, where you’ll find three workflow options:

EDIT QUICK - The Quick Fix sliders in the palette panel on the right in the screen shot above are very reminiscent of the highly effective, easy-to-use sliders found in Lightroom.

EDIT FULL – That’s a very full Photoshop Elements Tool Box at left in the screen shot just below. And there are more tools underneath them that are revealed by clicking on the small black triangle in the bottom right corner of the tools that are showing. On the right, palette panels like those in Photoshop show your image’s multi-channel HISTOGRAM as well as your LAYERS, UNDO HISTORY, COLOR SWATCHES, CONTENT, EFFECTS, ADJUSTMENTS, FAVORITES, INFO and NAVIGATOR.

EDIT GUIDED – Click on any of the “what do you want to do?” statements in the left Panel box that appears in this third EDIT option (not shown here) to tell the program what you’d like to do. The program will lead you through it.

Illustration 3: Easy-to-understand Lightroom-like sliders (above at right on PSE8’s Edit Quick workspace) show your progress in the real time image window.

Illustration 4: Above, Adobe PSE8’s EDIT Full workspace option reveals Photoshop’s familiar histogram, layers, history and other palettes on the right instead of the sliders in EDIT Quick.

Illustration 5: The palette bin on the right of PSE8’s SHARE tab (above) is your control space for image output. It offers you a full set of ways to share your work with others.

That covers still images, but what about your videos and video clips? Elements Organizer handles them right along with your stills, but you’ll polish them into finished videos with the other half of the bundle: Adobe Premiere Elements 8. Editing video and video clips has never been faster or easier. But, remember my one caution. Video editing needs more computer power than editing stills. You’ll need a more potent PC to render your videos. Don’t try to do it on an ancient system. Make sure you comfortably exceed all of Adobe’s minimum system requirements at the end of this review to be sure your computer can handle the task. (If your computer won’t cut it, you’re probably long overdue for a system upgrade. And there are some super deals available right now on up-to-date systems.)

Adobe Premiere Elements 8, like its sister program Photoshop Elements 8, works on adequately powered 32-bit and 64-bit systems. That 32-bit/64-bit capability is something you should make certain that any new software you buy does offer. While your current PC may be a 32-bit system, your next one will likely be 64-bit. So, just as you’ll be able to do with Photoshop Elements 8 for your stills, you’ll still be able to create a polished video quickly and easily with Adobe Premiere Elements 8 when you go 64-bit.

As with past versions of Adobe Premiere Elements, your version 8 video creations cannot be imported into Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. But, given Premiere Elements 8’s capabilities, this shouldn’t be an issue for anyone except professionals who need the full set of features in the high end Premiere CS4 program.

If you have an older version of Adobe Premiere Elements on your computer, don’t run it simultaneously with version 8. You may not want to keep that old version on your system anyway since version 8 can open any projects you’ve produced with a previous version. Besides, once you save your work in Adobe Premiere Elements 8, you’ll no longer be able to edit them in previous versions. No problem, though; if you have an older version of Premiere Elements, your existing catalog will automatically and nondestructively be converted for use in Premiere Elements 8.

Now that you’ve imported your video clips into Elements Organizer, you’re ready to roll. And roll you will; the entire process is painless provided that your PC has enough editing “power.” Be sure to read the minimum requirements carefully and don’t try to scrimp on them. If you can, significantly surpass ALL the minimum CPU and RAM requirements spelled out on the software package. (They’re reproduced at the end of this review). You’d need those ramped-up resources to produce your video masterpieces quickly and smoothly with any video editing software, not just with Adobe Premiere Elements 8.

To get going, you can start by setting criteria for specific kinds of video clips that you need and Smart Albums will bring them together automatically.

Illustration 6: Adobe Premiere Elements 8’s intuitive workspace shares a common look with PSE8.

Got ‘em? Good! But, now you’ve happened to notice that your video is shaky. Maybe you should’ve used a tripod to steady your video shoot after all! And your video lighting seems to be off a bit, too. (Heck, when you bought your new DSLR body with video capability, the salesman didn’t say a word about your having to use new techniques!) Well, SmartFix in Premiere Elements 8 can automatically correct those issues for you!

Illustration 7: You can quickly adjust the length of your video and adjust your soundtrack to fit.

Your first cut is done, but you’re thinking that the clips you’ve chosen really are a bit too long to maintain your audience’s interest in your video presentation. No sweat. Smart Trim can quickly suggest which footage to cut out or keep in to produce a final video of any length you choose.

Time to add your music and narration. SmartMix can automatically add a “pro” caliber soundtrack that fits each segment and transition from your video’s opening to its end. And SmartSound automatically adjusts your soundtrack to the length of your final production.

Let’s add some Hollywood effects here, too. Premiere Element 8’s new, built-in motion tracking lets you add graphics, text and effects that automatically follow and move with your video scene’s subjects. There’s an all-new library of artwork and graphics you can use.

At last, you can share your video creation with your friends and family in private gallery on Photoshop.com (there’s no charge for 2 GB of free storage). Or you can upload your video to other online sharing sites like YouTube.

By the way, if you’re wondering what Plus membership brings you, Adobe Premiere Elements 8 Plus members enjoy 20GB of online storage, ongoing deliveries of tutorials, movie themes, video effects, online albums and more regularly delivered to their PC. It’s a great deal!

Adobe Premiere Elements 8 supported import/export file formats include ASF (import only), AVI, ACVHD (import only), SWF (import only), Blu-ray Disk (export only), DV, DVD, Dolby Digital Stereo, H.264, HDV, JPEG, PNG (import only), PSD (import only), MOD and TOD (JVC Everio import only), MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MP3, WAV, QuickTime, Windows Media, WMA (import only), and 3GP.