Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Great for editing, but Picasa still rules as a photo organizer
Comment: I am an amateur photographer and a casual Photoshop Elements user. I have done minimal touch-ups since acquiring Elements several weeks ago. However, I have used it enough to know that Google's free Picasa program still rules for photo organization. I appreciate Elements auto-add feature that recognizes when I insert the memory card from my dslr and allows me to create and name folders and subfolders, and rename/number my pictures in various formats.
However, when viewing the photos, it displays them all by date and time taken. It does not divide the photos by subfolders (you must manually create albums). If you want to find a picture, say taken during Christmas 2006, the user must either scroll through the hundreds (or thousands) of photos, or use the search function and adjust the parameters of the search manually. In Picasa, there is a list of folders on the left separated by year and organized by date. Just go to 2006 and find "Christmas" at the end, just before 2007. I.e., no need to scroll or enter search terms.
Also, displaying the photos by date and time taken will combine ALL the photos. This is not a problem until there are photos from multiple photographers (i.e., photos from both my dslr and my wife's point-and-shoot, or shared photos of the same event). Then they appear disjointed, instead of User A's photos, then User B's photos, et cetera. There may be a way around this, but I haven't found it (though I haven't really looked).
For my personal use I import and file my photos through Elements's auto-add feature, then open Picasa and let it auto-organize for more user-friendly viewing. When I start editing, I go back to Elements and its superb interface and user controls.
Overall, Photoshop Elements is a great product and a reasonable value. It offers exceptional photo editing capabilities including the most useful features from the full version of Photoshop. However, they need to take a few cues from google and improve the functionality of their organization feature.
NOTE: Picasa also provides basic, easy-to-use editing tools. If you just want to crop, minimize red-eye, et cetera, try http://picassa.google.com (its FREE!) before you spend money on editing software.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bought as a gift
Comment: I bought this for my daughter who is a senior in High School and she loves it. She has already used it to create some very cool projects.
Customer Rating:
Summary: photoshop
Comment: I purchased the photoshop elements as a christmas gift for my daughter.
I am happy to say she is very pleased with the product thank you for the great gift.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Slow, slow, slow file handling
Comment: I have a pretty decent computer with a dual-core processor and 4G RAM and it takes 15 seconds each to load my 8 megapixel images. Version 5 had (and has no problems like this). I hate this thing and never use it. It may have great features, but I'm growing old waiting for it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Adobe needs to work with Macrovision to fix major install flaw
Comment: I installed the trial version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 on my machine the same day that I ordered the retail version here. It ran fine, and from what I saw was a decent upgrade to the version 2 I had used in the past.
The huge problem came when I tried to move from the trial version to retail. First I looked for a simple method to just insert the serial number to license the version I was running. No luck. Then I tried uninstalling the trial and installing the retail version. After the install I can not get the program to run. If I click on the icon a process starts but the program window does not open. If I leave the process running long enough it will say something about the software no longer being licensed and that I should talk to my System Administrator. Well, at home that would be me. It is one of my pet peeves that so many software makers trot out that tired message instead of something useful to actually fix the problem.
Adobe has chosen Macrovision FLEXnet to secure their software, which is fine. But somewhere the system has broken down or something is getting corrupted (on many people's systems, but not all) and the software is not getting categorized as a legitimate install by FLEXnet. It has decided that I have exceeded my time alotment for the license to run Elements 6.
I have tried many fixes since the first install. Several from the Adobe site that pertain to FLEXnet and some that pertain to Windows Vista. I have also spent a large amount of time searching the Internet and trying fixes that others list. All to no avail.
My opinion is that it is time for Adobe and Macrovision to work together to publish a patch that will fix the license issue.
Until that happens I would recommend avoiding Elements 6.
EDIT: There has finally been a breakthrough where an Adobe support person actually told a user about the fix for this. That user posted on the Adobe forums. Sadly, the fix was actually avialable SINCE OCTOBER.
Howardpm writes:
"Go to Adobe.com click on downloads --> Updates
Select Acrobat - Windows
Then click on - Adobe Acrobat 8 licensing service update (Windows Vista only) 486KB 10/1/2007
Download that and run the InstAS file, it will say something about anchoring and sit there for 3 to 4 minutes, then it will close. Re-run Elements 6.0 and it should ask for your serial # and you should be good to go."
I just followed his instructions (adding that I had to run InstAS as an Administrator) and it works!
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