Photoshop or Photoshop Elements 5.0

Posted by: Don Atkinson on 21 December 2006

Photoshop or Photoshop Elements 5.0

Mrs D would like a laptop for Xmas. Snata will be obliging (he knows what's good for him!)

She would like (amongst otherthings) to be able to capture, store, manipulate and print her own photos. Mainly to be able to by-pass me. She only has a Nikon Coolpx 7900 but does pinch my photos occasionally if I get the film copied onto cd by Kodak or Snappy Snaps etc.

She also has a Panasonic Mini DV camcorder and would like to edit her home movies and add a background soundtrack etc

So I need to install some sort of photo processing software. I had intended to buy a package with Adobe's Elements 4.0 and Premiere 2.0 (? the movie maker product). They were going for about £100 the pair recently.

But I now see that Elements 5.0 is available and I assume Premiere 3.0 is out or about to appear.

Are these products "good enough" or do I really need to buy the full-blown Photoshop CS (?) and full-blown movie making product (name ?)

The laptop is an IBM R60 with 2 Gb RAM, 100GB HD and a DVD burner running on XP SP2.

Cheers

Don

PS No! I can't change it for a Mac...........
Posted on: 21 December 2006 by garyi
What you mean a mac with built in iPhoto for image manipulation and iMovie for digital video and iDVD to bring it alltogether!

Seriously Elements seems to come out very often and 4 was perfectly usable, I would suggest that is plenty if your wife is not a photo manipulation wizz
Posted on: 21 December 2006 by Graham Russell
As I pro photographer I rely on Photoshop CS2. However, I only use a very small percentage of what it has to offer. It is designed to cater for the diverse needs of all 'media' people.

Elements is a very capable package that can produce great results. With any package it's important to understand how to use the various features on offer. I suggest you also invest in a book that focuses on how photographers should use Elements. I have a great book "Photoshop CS2 for Photograhers". If there's something similar for Elements it would be a great guide.

It's so easy to spend hours sat in front of the PC 'fiddling' with photos. Productivity is the key!!

For video editing how about Pinacle Studio? It's highly capable and a reasonable price. The user interfacde is nice and simple too. In the past I've found Premiere's GUI to be very 'busy'. It always used to be very expensive. I guess prices have dropped since I last looked.

Graham.
Posted on: 21 December 2006 by Derek Wright
A few years ago Nikon wre bundling Photoshop Lite or something of that order with the 990 camera - have you checked what is on the various CDs that came with the Nikon camera, it might well provide all you need.

Failing that that are one or two free products - Irfanview used to have a good reputation for image manipulation - however I think it is a shame that you are windose based.
Posted on: 22 December 2006 by Rockingdoc
Adobe "upgrade" Elements every year, but since v.3 these have been mainly cosmetic changes. Elements 4 will be fine, but don't pay much as most decent cameras and scanners come bundled with the previous to latest version of Elements, which will now be 4.
I installed a "moody" copy of CS2 for a while, but couldn't find any real advantage over Elements, so I went back to being legit.

I don't do video, so can't advise there.
Posted on: 22 December 2006 by DIL
Sandisk have been bundling Phase One's Capture One LE with their Extreme III memory cards. (Actually an activation code, you download the software from Phase One's website.) This software allows you to work with RAW files and to do limited post processing, ie white balance, exposure, saturation, sharpening etc. Could be of interest if a.)your wife's (or your) camera produces RAW files and/or b.) you are in the market for memory cards...

/dl
Posted on: 22 December 2006 by Don Atkinson
Thanks for your advice guys,

I bought Elements 5.0 and Premiere 3.0 today for a combined price of £80 at PC World.

Lets keep our fingers crossed that they deliver the goods.

I will look for a book on how to use these.

Her camera doesn't do RAW files (as far as I can tell) and it didn't come with any third party software, although earlier models from Nikon did !! Pity

Cheers

Don