Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:  
Summary: Good program...No manual!
Comment: I love the idea of this program. However, it is not nearly as simple to use as I had hoped. I had to purchase a book to tell me how to use the tools in the photoshop section and still have not completely figured out the premiere section (I need another book for that). It would be nice if the program came with a manual for those of us who do not find such programs to be intuitive.
Customer Rating:
Summary: are you sitting comfortably?
Comment: I think the legions of Adobe fans, including expert/magazine reviewers, have forgotten how truly and shockingly frustrating the Photoshop Elements programs can be if one is new to them. Reminds me a bit of The Emperor's new Clothes -- people are hesitant to admit to anyone else that they are difficult to learn! Many buried and nonintuitive steps are required to do some of the simplest procedures. It took me an hour of online searching to figure out just how to add one picture to an existing project. It is not drag and drop! Until you uncover the convoluted processes, expect to write a lot of notes and have Post-it stickers all over your desk. You may get fabulous results, but man, prepare for a long learning curve. I sure wish Microsoft did not discontinue their super user friendly Digital Image series.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great value, but expect frustration
Comment: This is simply the best bang for buck package in the photo and video editing consumer market. There is a learning curve for the advanced features, but man you can do some awesome things once you learn. This package really makes most of the functionality of the super-expensive full versions accessible to the home user.
The only problem is that these programs are very buggy (premiere more so than photoshop). There is a lot of frustration the first few weeks as you spend a lot of time losing and repeating work due to crashes. You eventually learn where the bugs are and develop the habit of saving after every edit you make.
Adobe would be well advised to simply focus on bug fixes and polishing the product for an entire release. They keep losing folks, not because the user interface is too complicated, but because the program keeps crashing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not compatible with my XP computer
Comment: I tried to install the program into 2 different XP desktop computers and the first one wouldn't even install. The second computer was able to install and when I tried to start the program up, it would crash my system and the computer would restart on its own. I tried re-installing but it didn't work. Not sure why this happened, my computers have at least the minimum required RAM and processor speed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Reasonable Package
Comment: The value is good. With Photoshop the standard for photo editing, Photoshop Elements ends up being a good choice to get a taste of the higher end full Photoshop. The skills do transfer.
I was a Microsoft Digital Picture Suite user before they decided not to support Vista. Compared to Digital Picture Suite, Photoshop Element is less intutive to use out of the box. By reading the included manuals and practicing with the software, I was able to figure out the basic tools. Elements is more powerful than Digital Picture Suite. The extra complexity in Elements is a typical trade off between ease of use (Complexity) and power.
I am a user of Pinacle Studio 11. Compared to Premiere Elements 4, Studio 11 is a much better program. I would never buy Premiere Elements as a stand alone product but for the $50 extra beyond Adobe Elements, it is a good place to start if you are new to Video editing. Once you outgrow the capabilities of Premiere elements you will want to move to something like Pinacle Studio.
|
|
|
