Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows

Manufacturer:	Adobe
Release date:	18 October, 2004

Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows

Average rating: Stars

If You Are Looking For Something Easy - Save Your Money

I found this software very complicated to use. I purchased it because Adobe no longer supported my old version of PhotoDeluxe.

PhotoDeluxe was so user friendly, easy to use, even for the novice user. PhotoShop Elements on the other hand is very complicated. What I could do with one or two clicks of the mouse, now takes four or five. The various tool buttons do not have 'drop-down' descriptions describing their function.

According to Adobe's website, PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements was designed to keep Adobe competative.

Elements may have more features than the old versions of PhotoDeluxe, but figureing out how to use them has been a nighmare for me.

So for the average user who wants to edit their family vacation photo's, I have but one thing to say, save your money. Elements is not for you.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows - Adobe

PhotoShop elements is great.

The full PhotoShop is expensive and over the last 3 years we haven't found anything we couldn't do with PhotoShop elements. If you are a professional you probably want more but we have done a lot with Elements.

Adobe - Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows

Nobody does it better..

The full Photoshop is the program that leads the pack for photo manipulations of any kind, and Elements 3.0 gives you a lot of what the full program offers. You will probably need one of several "how to" books to tackle specific foto fiddles, but these are $30 or less, and you will be opening up a whole new world if this is your first shot at at serious foto manipulation of any kind - or even if it's not (but then you don't need to read this).
A caution - your PC configuration is important to how fast you can work. You really need a second HD for any Photoshop program unless you are doing a bare minimum of manipulation (in which case you don't really need PS). If you run out of RAM and the program needs to write to disc, it needs to be a different disc than the program itself is installed on. Otherwise everything seems to come to a "halt." Well, to tell you the truth, it does! This is what's behind complaints of slowness..
My PC is a P-4 machine with an 800 MHZ bus and 2GB RAM, plus a second SATA HD installed just for this program (Photoshop calls this a "scratch" drive).
You can get a second HD and a big memory upgrade for about $300. If you are serious about foto manipulation, this is the way to go with a PC.
How about a MAC, you ask? My MAC is not a fire-breather. It is a PowerBookG4. No, not the latest. This is a laptop with a 1.33 GHZ processor, a 167 MHC bus, one HD, and 1MB RAM. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, no?
It easily runs Elements 3.0, albeit a bit slower than my PC - but - the MAC has a calibrated 17" display, and my printer pumps out very close to what I see on the screen. The PC is a little faster for sure (and it has a good display also), so rather than buy a new MAC, I am switching to the PC for my foto editing.
But make sure you have the right PC configuration or you will be miserable.