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Photoshop Elements - A mini Photoshop! Pick of the Week
Photoshop Elements iconThe macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
For those of you (like me) without the talent (or budget) for the full-blown Photoshop package, Photoshop Elements is a great alternative. With support for much of the full Photoshop feature set for only $99, it's a bargain that meets my needs perfectly. The pre-defined effects (bevels, drop shadows, tints, etc.) save much time fussing around with settings, and the online help is relatively extensive. In addition to the "usual" tools (paint can, air brush, stamps, etc.), Elements also supports input tablets, making it easy to add pressure-sensitive detail to your images.

If you work with graphics for a living, Photoshop Elements probably won't meet your needs. But if you just have modest needs for creating and modifying graphics and photographs, Elements is an impressive package. It continues to amaze me (remember, I don't do this for a living!) with its feature set.
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Photoshop Elements - A mini Photoshop! | 18 comments | Create New Account
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I agree
Authored by: deleted_user18 on Oct 07, '02 01:53:20AM

PS Elements 2 is really worth the money. I use it much more than GraphicConverter now! Only some minor things where GC is much better (and faster).



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i don't know
Authored by: theegor on Oct 07, '02 09:41:15AM
I installed the trial version, and ran into installation issues. I am hesitant to buy, since I know not whether the same problems apply to the retail version.
  1. It requires installation on an HFS partition. I use UFS. So I created an HFS disk image, and installed to the disk image. Installation time was around 15 to 20 hours.
  2. Quite a few of the helpers and features failed to install. Perhaps because it is a trial version. Couldn't say.


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Can't help with HFS/UFS, but...
Authored by: robg on Oct 07, '02 09:47:02AM

1) The install on my HFS drive took no more than two minutes.
2) I haven't found any missing pieces as of yet ... tuturials, help, etc. are all present.

-rob.



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Can't help with HFS/UFS, but...
Authored by: deleted_user18 on Oct 07, '02 11:46:42AM

Yeah, but the installer is crap anyway. Runs twice, displays strange error messages - but Elements 2 runs without a problem.

But when you move your Elements-folder Elements will no longer find its extra files.

This is lame Adobe! next time we want a program without a installer!



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Re: Can't help with HFS/UFS, but...
Authored by: theegor on Oct 07, '02 07:26:03PM

i'm happy to hear that a normal install takes a couple of minutes. i imagine that installing to the HFS disk image slowed it down.

anyway, it is really lame to require HFS.



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Re: Can't help with HFS/UFS, but...
Authored by: saint.duo on Oct 07, '02 08:37:23PM

Why do you say that? Almost everything I've read that is official from Apple basically states that HFS+ should be used for a Mac OS X install unless you are using it as a server, and that some programs will not operate under UFS.



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HFS vs. UFS
Authored by: theegor on Oct 08, '02 08:09:12AM

UFS is compatible with Unix apps. It is case sensitive. This permits me to build a ton of Unix apps, and lets me easily integrate with Linux and nfs environments. Life is much easier when all of my machines offer the same file system semantics.

HFS offers semantics which differ from traditional Unix filesystem semantics. You can't even build the complete Darwin system on HFS, due to incompatibilities with the HFS characteristics.

HFS also has resource forks. I don't want my file system to offer resource forks. It violates the spirit of Unix, where all files are equal, and can be manipulated by all file utilities. Resource forks impose policy, which may not be proper policy. See the paper "End-to-End Arguments in System Design" by Saltzer et al, http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/saltzer84endtoend.html

And then UFS offers soft updates, which prevents disk corruption when the system is improperly halted (similar to a journaled file system).

Since I'm from a Unix background, I can't think of any reason to use HFS.



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HFS vs. UFS
Authored by: nadig on Oct 11, '02 08:08:10PM

Have you considered having two partitions, with two different file systems?
As a matter of fact, and as you state, UNIX works better with flat filesystems like UFS, on the other hand, MacOS and applications developed for MacOS work best with HFS.

It's not about an ideology but rather optimizing for the task. I'm sure you won't use a Ferrari to pull you trailer nor won't you use a Range Rover to race Formula-1 races. Different tasks require different tools.

Hope that helps,
Christoph



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HFS vs. UFS
Authored by: jptd on Oct 13, '02 11:08:17PM

Soft updates are not something that Darwin's implementation supports from what I have read. I saw something earlier on that indicated that they were trying to improve the UFS implementation. But, I could be wrong of course.



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HFS vs. UFS
Authored by: pecosbill on Oct 18, '02 02:03:10PM

A small HFS partition probably wouldn't be a bad idea. Howevver, it probably wouldn't fix the problem:

It's possible that the installer was trying to install stuff to /Lib or ~/Lib and was choking on the lack of resource forks (which is inexcusable as Apple provides a means on UFS).

It's worth a complaint to Adobe.



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Good prices
Authored by: tapella on Oct 07, '02 11:51:48AM

Don't mean to advertise or anything, but Amazon.com has a good price for this piece of software. ($90 with a $20 rebate = $70.)



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Photoshop Elements tip??? and rebate
Authored by: davidjschloss on Oct 07, '02 12:38:51PM

I just finished writing an article for next month's CPU magazine where I compared PC and Mac graphics apps (mostly PC becaue of the magazine) and had a great time with Elements 2.0. It's a great little app. I can't belive how much of Photoshop you get for that $99. It's silly. (Silly good.)

Also there's not just the $20 rebate on the program through Amazon, there's a $30 crossgrade on the package. Anyone who is registered for one of about 8 programs gets $30 off. Sadly most of the apps are PC, but any version of Photoshop or Elements 1.0 qualifies.

That said, this doesn't seem like much of an OS X hint. t's a review of a piece of software, and one that's not OS X only. It runs under 9, X, and on the same disk is the PC installer, so you can also install it on XP, NT, etc.

But PSE is wonderful. (unless you need cmyk or 16bit color)



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I feel like a GIMP
Authored by: Accura on Oct 07, '02 10:27:21PM

Now call me crazy or something but if you want a decent free image program have you considered GIMP running under xwindows, i use it to do all the image stuff for the web sited that i work on and it keeps me happy, itsgot all the features you need, its free.

its also not hard to install (but takes a while over dial up - i know this because i did it)

accura



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I tried it...
Authored by: robg on Oct 08, '02 04:13:39PM

... but XWindows just feels clunky and slow compared to the Mac OS (and yes, I tried Orboros or however it's spelled). Also, GIMP has potentially the most complex user interface on any program that I've ever tried to use ... Elements feels natural and took very little time to figure out.

It is a valid (free!) option, however, and people should definitely try it out to see if they like it.

-rob.



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Hmm good point
Authored by: Accura on Oct 08, '02 07:52:58PM

I guess i don't think about the look or gui any more, i've been using x-windows for a while (at work and home) and its not one of my start up items (this is on an old G3 as well, it doesn't slow down much)

gimp takes a while to get used to, but thats only because every one is used to photo shop, but can you remember when you first started using photoshop? i can, it wasn't very easy to use.

GIMP is a good program for graphix work, you can do every thing in it that you can in photoshop (some of the plugins are missing and need to be hunted down on the net) and its free. worth learning.

BTW Orboros sux ass, you should use something like windowsmaker. there are many nice looking window makers out there, just because we are using osX dosn't mean that we should use an aqua looking gui.

Accura



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I did.
Authored by: deleted_user18 on Oct 13, '02 11:19:55AM

But I didn't like it.

GIMP is a good program, but very complex. And having to brush up thounds of photos with a clunky xwindows interface isn't that great.

PS Elements 2 is much, much easier to handle. And it feels of course like a (very well done) Mac program.

You can do everything with GIMP, but PS Elements 2 saves you time. And if you can afford the 80 Euro...

GIMP is still on my harddisk - just to impress the Linux geeks :-)



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Elements and iPhoto
Authored by: JohnnyMnemonic on Oct 08, '02 02:08:42AM

Don't forget that you can change the default editing behavior in iPhoto: iPhoto->Preferences->"Double Clicking Photo Opens"->click "Other"->browse to "Photoshop Elements" or whatever other editor you use. This will cause double-clicked photos in iPhoto to open in your editor and have those changes then reflected in your iPhoto album, if not your Library (I haven't fully experimented to determine which photos are modified and if any photos are maintained as static reference versions).

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Elementary
Authored by: joebaltimore on Oct 09, '02 10:57:04PM

Last summer I bought PSE 1.0 and thought it was great. I'm not much of a photrographer or a graphics artist. So, when version 2.0 came out recently, I ordered from Amazon. I also got the $20 Amazon rebate and the $30 Adobe rebate. But, it is a great application. The precision with which it cleans up old photos scanned into the Mac is unbelievable. I scanned in a 60 year old photo of my grandparents. It was gritty, grimey, dusty and cracked. PSE 2.0 has an auto-fix feature and other plug-ins that cleaned it up like a new digital photo. Amazing!



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