January, 2008
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 & Adobe Premiere Elements 4 is a very powerful, very thorough photo and video editing package. The programs are also quite user-friendly, allowing the user to get started immediately and bypassing the steep learning curve common to many other programs (including the full version of Photoshop).
Photoshop Elements 6
Organizing with Photoshop Elements
Photoshop Elements allows you to import and organize your photos, audio and video files, and PDF documents. You can preview thumbnails of your photos (including PDF files), add keywords to your files, and rank images (from one to five stars) to help you find what you need quickly and efficiently. You can search your files by date, caption, file name, file type, and even locate all photos containing faces from within Elements.
Editing Modes
Photoshop Elements is an incredibly versatile and intuitive program. It offers a variety of editing options to enable the user to work in a way that makes them comfortable. There are three photo editing modes in Photoshop Elements.
Full editing mode offers full control for those already comfortable with the program.
Quick editing mode puts the most common fixes right at your fingertips. You can correct photos with the click of a button using preset “Auto” options, or fine-tune the adjustments manually.
Guided editing mode allows you to select from a list of tasks what you would like to do, then provides the tools and instructions to help you do it easily.
Comparing Photoshop Elements to Photoshop
As a graphic designer, I regularly use Adobe Photoshop and expected that Photoshop Elements would use a similar interface despite the differences between the two programs. In many ways, this was indeed the case, but in others there were differences.
Photoshop Elements offers a simple but convenient feature that I have not seen in Photoshop to date; when you create a new document, you have the option to choose “new from clipboard,” which will create a new file and paste the contents of your clipboard directly into the file. In Photoshop, this has always been a two-step process.
One thing that I found difficult was that the toolbox for PS Elements was set up differently than the one in Photoshop for no readily apparent reason. I found myself frequently looking for the tool that I needed, and believe that others accustomed to Photoshop would have similar disorientation at first. I believe that this could also be inconvenient for anyone who chose to upgrade from Photoshop Elements to Photoshop.
Here are the toolboxes side-by-side for comparison (Photoshop CS2 on the left, and Photoshop Elements 6 on the right):
This is a minor issue though, and a few trips to the “help” files had me sorted out in no time.
Editing in Photoshop Elements
Photoshop Elements allows users to handle normal photo processing techniques, like cropping and straightening, sharpening, adjusting lighting and exposure, and color correcting quickly and easily. The program also includes advanced retouching techniques to repair photos. You can remove dust and scratches, blemishes, and other flaws quickly and easily with the Spot Healing Brush, or the Healing Brush tool for even finer control.
In addition to its “remove color” method for converting a photo to grayscale, Elements also provides another method called “convert to black and white” which gives the user more control over tonal adjustments.
The Photomerge function helps you to create photo composite photos. It allows you to combine the best facial expressions and poses from several photos into one perfect group shot, and to merge several different photos together to create a seamless panoramic photo. I was very impressed with the results.
Photoshop also includes a variety of filters and effects that can convert your photos into artwork.
Creating and Sharing with Photoshop Elements
Once you have finished editing your photos in Photoshop Elements, there are several things that you can do with them. The “Create” tab includes templates for a variety of projects – including photo books, calendars, photo collages, online galleries, slide shows, greeting cards, CD and DVD cases, and more. All that you need to do is choose the type of project you would like to create, and the program provides step-by-step instructions to help you complete it.
To design a web gallery, it was a simple matter of selecting the images that I wanted to include, choosing a layout from the options available, personalizing the display with my choice of colors and labels, and then saving it to upload to my webspace.
There is a wide selection of graphic elements within the program that you can use with your photos to create your own custom images. These include backgrounds, frames, clip art graphics, shapes to crop out parts of your photos and preformatted text effects. These items can be sorted in several convenient ways, including by color, event, style and keyword.
After you have chosen the graphic elements that you want to use, you can return to edit mode and make any adjustments you like.
Photoshop Elements makes it fun and easy to create images that you can proudly display for your friends and family. It is a powerful piece of software with many capabilities, and to make it even more appealing, it is incredibly simple to use. I would definitely recommend it!
Premiere Elements 4
Getting Started
When I sat down to begin working with Premiere Elements, I have to admit that the prospect made me a little bit nervous. Premiere Elements came with a manual nearly 200 pages long, compared to the 20-page instruction booklet for Photoshop Elements. To make matters worse, I had never used audio- or video-editing software of any sort before, and I was not sure what to expect.
While my computer met the system requirements for the program, there was certainly not a lot of room to spare. I launched the program and selected “new project” but that left me looking at a blank screen for a moment. My initial reaction to this was concern that there was some sort of program error, but within about a 20 seconds or so the panels had loaded and I was ready to go.
A word of warning - Premiere Elements will not work with the following processors: Intel Pentium III, AMD Athlon, AMD Athlon XP, or AMD Athlon XP-M. Premiere Elements 4 requires SSE2 support, which does not work with older Athlons, though the newer versions are compatible.
Premiere Elements includes two ways of looking at your project; the timeline and the sceneline. The timeline is designed to help you to trim, layer and synchronize your media:
The sceneline is very helpful in arranging content and adding titles, transitions and effects. This mode is more straightforward than the timeline, and as a new user I found it very convenient.
You can switch back and forth between these two modes at any time.
Building Your Project
Premiere Elements uses the same Organizer as Photoshop Elements, so finding photos, video clips, and audio files was a simple matter. You can add media from your computer, DVDs, CDs, mobile phones, camcorders, card readers and more. You can even record sound from a microphone.
This is what the screen looked like when I started my new project:
For my first attempt, I decided to try making a slideshow from still photos. First, I selected the photos from my computer using the organizer:
Once I had added the media to my project so that I had something to work with, I created a title page.
This was very straightforward. It was a simple matter to add, format, and position my text. The program includes dozens of preformated text options that can be customized for style and animation as the user sees fit.
From there, assembling the slideshow was just a matter of dragging and dropping the still photos into the sceneline.
At one point I realized that I had inadvertently skipped over a photo that I had wanted to include in a particular order. I hoped that I would not have to delete all of the photos that I had placed since the point where I wanted that one to appear. Fortunately, Adobe had planned for this; all that I had to do was drag that photo into the timeline where I wanted it to appear, and Premiere Elements shifted the later photos forward to accomodate the addition. I found it very convenient to rearrange my content even after it had been placed in a project. Files can also be deleted quite easily from the timeline by right-clicking on the thumbnail and selecting “delete”.
Managing content is incredibly easy in Premiere Elements. You can sort your media alphabetically by name, by whether it has been used in the project yet, or by media type by simply clicking on the relevant column heading. You can also choose to display video, audio, or image files alone, or in any combination. Thumbnails can be resized by simply right-clicking in the project display panel, selecting “thumbnails” and then choosing small, medium, large, or off.
The duration of display for still images can be set in the same way; right-click the project panel, select “still image duration” and change the settings as you see fit. (Note: You can set a default duration for all of the still images that you add, and you can also change the duration of individual images in the timeline. You will want to set your default image duration before you import your images into the project, as changes to the default duration will not affect images that are already in the project when the changes are made. To apply a new default length to still images in your project, you can delete them from the project panel and re-import them.)
Transitions
Premiere Elements allows you to add custom transitions within your content. There are dozens of transitions to choose from in a variety of styles. You can preview these in the the “edit” tab of the tasks panel here:
Different transitions can be added within the same project by dragging them from the tasks panel to a point in the timeline (or sceneline). If you prefer to use one transition style for all transitions within your project, you can set this as the default by right-clicking on it and choosing “set selected as default transition”. (As with the still image duration, you need to choose your default transition before you begin placing images or you will have to apply it to each transition manually.)
Effects
Premiere Elements also includes a wide selection of effects that can be applied to your content. These effects allow you to adjust brightness and color, blur or sharpen images, distort or transform content, or even to stabilize a video that suffers from camera shake.
This screenshot shows just a few of the options available:
Audio Editing
The audio editing functions in Premiere Elements are also very complete. You will find audio effects to remove noise from your recordings, add reverberation, pitch shift, adjust volume and balance, fade volume in or out, and much more. In short, Premiere Elements provides everything that you need to clean up and fine-tune the audio portion of your project.
Once you have modified the audio, you can then add a track for narration, if you wish. Premiere Elements has a separate narration channel with it’s own dedicated mixer controls. You can even use keyframes to decrease the soundtrack volume where the narration takes place, and restore it to its regular volume when the narration is finished.
The audio mixer is very easy to use due to it’s straightforward design:
Sharing your Projects
Premiere Elements can create fully functional DVD and Blu-ray discs, complete with selection menus and scene markers from a series of templates. You can also design your own custom templates in Photoshop Elements and add them to the template selection within Premiere Elements.
If you prefer to share your movies online, Premiere Elements makes it quick and easy to upload your movies directly to YouTube. The first time you upload a file, you can set up an account and specify your quality settings; these settings can be saved as a “Quick Share” preset that will make the process even simpler in the future.
Summary
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 & Adobe Premiere Elements 4 is a powerful, user-friendly, and remarkably affordable software package. It is designed to have users up and running in moments, perfect for casual users who would rather spend their time creating than reading a technical manual. Despite its ease of use, this package is quite complex and capable of producing quality work. I would highly recommend this product to anyone interested in taking their photos and videos to the next level!
Pricing: Full Retail - US $149.99
Licensed owners of Adobe Premiere Elements, Photoshop Elements, Album, LE or PhotoDeluxe for Windows can upgrade from Adobe Premiere Elements, Photoshop Elements, Album, LE or PhotoDeluxe for Windows to this version for US $119.99
Company Website: www.adobe.com
System Requirements: Windows Vista or XP
Adobe Photoshop Elements:
- Intel Pentium 4, Pentium M, or Intel Centrino 1.3GHz (or compatible) processor
- Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
- 256MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
- 1.5GB of available hard-disk space
- Color monitor with 16-bit color video card
- 1,024x768 monitor resolution at 96dpi or less
- Microsoft DirectX 9 compatible display driver
- CD-ROM drive
- Web features require Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, Netscape Navigator 7.0, or Mozilla Firefox 1.5
Adobe Premiere Elements:
- Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron 1.3GHz (or compatible) processor; Pentium 4 3GHz required for HD or Blu-ray
- Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista
- For Windows XP: 512MB of RAM (1GB required for HD or Blu-ray)
- For Windows Vista: 1GB of RAM (2GB required for HD or Blu-ray)
- 4.5GB of available hard-disk space
- Color monitor with 16-bit color video card
- 1,024x768 monitor resolution at 96dpi or less
- Microsoft DirectX 9 or 10 compatible sound and display driver
- DVD-ROM drive (compatible DVD burner required to burn DVDs; compatible Blu-ray burner required to burn Blu-ray Discs)
- DV/i.LIN K/FireWire/IEEE 1394 interface to connect a Digital 8 or DV camcorder, or a USB2 interface to connect a DV-via-USB-compatible DV camcorder (other video devices supported via the Media Downloader)
Adobe Premiere Elements supported import/export formats include: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DV, AVI, Windows Media, QuickTime, JVC Everio MOD (import only), 3GP, ASF (import only), WAV, WMA (import only), Dolby Digital Stereo, PSD (import only), JPEG, PNG (import only), DVD, Blu-ray Disc (export only).
Import/export of some formats including DVD, Blu-ray, MPEG2, MPEG-4, H.264, and Dolby Digital Stereo may require activation via an Internet connection. Activation is fast, easy, and free. Import/export of .3GP, .3GP2, and .MPEG4 requires QuickTime software.
Copyright (c) 2008, Adrienne Turcotte, All Rights Reserved
