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Adobe Photoshop Elements continues to be a crowd favorite Adobe’s consumer editor, Photoshop Elements 4.0, is a very feature rich tool and the latest release continues that legacy by adding even more features and abilities to the well known program. When you first start Elements, the following splash screen appears. This is customizable. The selections available are; organizer, quick edit (for automatic adjustment), Edit and Enhance (full control), Make Photo Creations and Start from Scratch. Start Screen
ZOOM in of Start Screen
available tools
Organizer
Organizing your digital photos is the biggest issue facing most of us today. As part of Elements 4.0, an effective organizer is included. This organizer allows you to label all your photos for easy recall later based on tags or labels that you assigned. New to this version is a photo recognition tool that allows it, in concept, to find all photos on your computer that have similar characteristics (i.e. Pictures of kids at the beach from different times and in different folders). While this image recognition feature works to a degree, it’s still in its infancy, but does hold promise and I’m looking forward to Adobe’s future developments in this area. Editing
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 offers two editing interfaces. The first is quick edit; the second is standard edit, which brings you into a scaled down version of CS2. Quick Edit
Quick Edit, allows for very quick AUTO changes to: 1) Sharpness 2) Levels 3) Contrast 4) Color Standard Edit
Standard Edit includes the following: 1) Layers (it is highly recommended to learn how to use layers to make changes to your photos) 2) Shadow and highlight adjustment 3) Use of software filters 4) Detailed help every step of the way. Create with Your Photos
Here Adobe Photoshop Elements allows you to easily create slideshows and DVD’s to show on your computer or TV. There’s also a quick and simple web page creation tool which is very effective for sharing your photos over the web. Slide Show
A wonderful new feature in Photoshop Elements 4.0 is the Slideshow creator. Available tools in slideshow maker are: 1) Duration of photo’s 2) Music (can auto-fit slide show to your music) 3) Graphics 4) Titling 5) Preview before finalizing Photoshop Elements 4.0 adds enough new features and abilities to be a worthwhile upgrade for just about any Photoshop Elements user. The only exception might be those who are already using Photoshop Elements 3 and only use the most basic features and already have slide-show creation software. This version adds some great new features and abilities and it’s very nice to be able to create a project from start to finish including your end presentation, all within one program. System Requirements: Intel® Pentium® III or 4 or Intel Centrino (or compatible) 800MHz processor Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional, Home Edition, or Media Center Edition 2005 with Service Pack 2 256MB of RAM (512MB recommended) 900MB of available hard-disk space Color monitor with 16-bit color video card 1,024x768 monitor resolution, Microsoft DirectX 9 compatible display driver CD-ROM drive For more information, or to download a trial version, go here: www.adobe.com By Adam Shorr |
