Photoshop Tricks

5 Comments for this entry

• Debbie Lee Wesselmann
  July 8th, 2010 on 4:03 pm

  Review by Debbie Lee Wesselmann for Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8
  Rating:
  I installed this Adobe bundle on a brand new HP PC with a Intel 2 Quad processor and Windows 7, and, while I love Photoshop and some of the upgraded features, Premiere crashed twice the first time I used it and took forever to process. (More on preventing crashes later.) Photoshop is a must-have program. Premiere is a basic, no-frills program with some major issues, designed for composing movies out of digital video clips and still photos.

  First, Photoshop: Photoshop Elements remains one of the most powerful image processors for the non-professional user. From special effects to simply improving the look of standard photos, the software can manipulate photos in almost any way you can imagine. Out of the newest features, the most interesting are recomposition tools, size presets, and facial recognition. In the first, the user can unlock the background from the foreground and bring foreground images closer or farther from one another, and can even remove unsightly objects from the photo altogether. With protect and remove brushes, you can even erase your ex from that family photo and bring everyone closer together to fill the empty space. Facial recognition, while quirky at times, works so you can quickly extract all the photos of an individual from your library — say, you want to delete every photo that contains your ex or print them out for dartboards, and so you call them up to see them all at once. The quirky part comes when the software recognizes that a bird or a gorilla is not a person, but then asks “Who’s this?” while pointing to a flower stalk or a print on someone’s dress. The facial recognition feature works best if you take the time to fill out names on many photos. Eventually, it recognizes certain people, with or without sunglasses, in profile or full face. The size presets are the most practical improvement, as you can size your photos to standard sizes — say, 4x 6 or 8x 10 — simply by pulling down a window and selecting.

  Now, Premiere: If you are just starting out or don’t want to produce movies with a lot of editing and features, Premiere is an okay program, especially if you are buying Photoshop anyway. Those of us who have used Macs and its iMovie program will find this program comparable to what Apple was producing three years ago — and that should tell PC users how behind Premiere is. The interface is somewhat clunky, and it lacks intuitive editing controls. You can drag and drop clips from your organized media center, add titles, adjust transitions, and use themed templates. The biggest problem comes with frequent crashes when the program simply fails to respond during an operation. Originally, I didn’t install the content disk because I wasn’t interested in all those templates; however, as soon as I did, the crashes became less frequent. If you plan on doing minimal video work at a leisurely pace, this program should be good enough for your needs. Otherwise . . . well, you might want to use Photoshop’s remove brush to cut it out of your picture.

  For any digital photographer and PC user, Photoshop is a must-have program. Premiere is another matter; it will frustrate anyone expecting a program as powerful as Photoshop. Take serious stock of your needs before you buy these two programs as a bundle.

  NOTE: Because I used this with Windows 7, I cannot say how it works with earlier versions of Windows.

  – Debbie Lee Wesslmann
• Jack Olson
  July 8th, 2010 on 4:40 pm

  Review by Jack Olson for Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8
  Rating:
  Revised 06/03/2010
  
  Premiere Elements/Photoshop 8 has serious problems that render it useless to a majority of users. Initially problems were traced to conflicts with Realtek Audio and Nvidia graphics card installation software, now users with other hardware configurations are also reporting frequent crashes and stability issues with the PE/PSE 8 bundle. These type of conflicts should have been sorted out by Adobe in beta testing before the product was shipped, unfortunately as of this date, a fix has not yet been found. Be prepared to get under the hood of your PC for many hours of “quality time” to install new drivers,regedit, employ multiple workarounds and endless online “help” from India. Avoid this software if you use Nvidia graphics drivers or AVCHD 1080 video format. Beware reviewers giving this software bundle high marks, most are basing their reviews solely on Photoshop Elements and ignoring Premiere Elements 8 and it’s numberous stability problems. Adobe has been actively soliciting professional authors to write favorable reviews to offset real reviews made by actual paying not “compensated” customers.

  Adobe released a patch 8.01 (02/26/2010) for Premiere Elments 8, users are reporting that stability is somewhat improved but still fails to live up to Adobe’s advertising and the quality of Photoshop Elements 8. No measurable improvement in speed or compatibility with AVCHD format or 1080 HD video.

  Download the free 30 day trial version from Adobe to test compatibility with your PC before purchasing this product or wait untill Adobe releases newer version to solve the stability issues many are experiencing. You may also wish to try PE7 which has very good stability and isn’t bloated with marketing gimmicks and useless “new features” of PE8.
  
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  I received my copy of Premiere Elements 8 and Photoshop Elements 8 today. Installation was fairly easy with both programs but I can’t see any improvements over PE7 unless you consider being even more resource dependent an improvement. The one feature that I was really hoping for in this version continues to be absent, PE 8 cannot write Blu-Ray format to a file, disk only. The conversion of videos from PE7 to PE8 also caused problems with several scenes skipping frames, dropping sound and repeatedly hanging the program during rendering of a four minute video. I have to reboot my computer frequently as the software will refuse to re-open after being used. I have a one month old Intel I7 running Win7 64 with twelve gig of ram, what does it take to satisfy PE8? If you have an AVCHD video camera do not buy this product, try Sony Vegas or another editing package that is compatible with that format. The very few people that have reported success with PE8 are not using HD and are editing very brief lower resolution videos. This software may work on a thirty second low resolution YouTube video but it most definitely is not suitable for a twenty minute HD event. Photoshop Elements 8 is a slight improvement over version 7 if you discount the image organizer which I found to be useless and slowed my system with its background processing. I would recommend buying Photoshop Elements 8 as a standalone but would pass on the bundle because of Premiere Elements 8 shortcomings.

  I recommend that all users of the Elements 7 bundle skip this upgrade as it offers nothing in usefull functionality or performance. I honestly don’t see how Adobe can justify calling PE8 an “upgrade”, it is simply destabilized PE7 in a new box. The best feature is that PE8 does not overwrite PE7 so you will still be able to access and edit your PE7 videos which PE8 refuses to update or edit. Save your rupees for PE 9, 10, or 11, that may offer improvements over PE7… PE8 is the upgrade that never was.
  
  Bad Software: What to Do When Software Fails
• Loma Rica
  July 8th, 2010 on 4:47 pm

  Review by Loma Rica for Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8
  Rating:
  Purchased Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8 to run on a custom built high end computer designed specifically to handle the performance demands of video editing. This suite of programs is a total and complete waste of money. Slow and buggy does not begin to describe. Should you be wondering, the computer system in question is running Vista 64 (though the program is designed for a 32 bit operating system, 64 bit is supposedly “no problem” according to Adobe tech support) on the latest multi core Intel CPU on an Asus motherboard with 12 Gigabytes of Ram, two 10,000 rpm hard drives, top end video card, etc., etc. All drivers are up to date and everything else on the system works flawlessly.

  I am incredibly disappointed and since the software has been opened and I cannot return, I’m out the $144. We had several annoying problems with an earlier edition of Adobe elements (number 3 I believe) but always chalked it up to a less than adequate computer. Simply not the case this time around. No more Adobe products for me or my business if I can help it. I would strongly suggest looking at other offerings for your video editing needs.
• Richard Bunn
  July 8th, 2010 on 5:25 pm

  Review by Richard Bunn for Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8
  Rating:
  I have had home-grade video editing programs for years, mostly Pinnacle. I finally got sick of wearing out cordless-phone batteries waiting to talk to somebody in support, after all else failed on the last upgrade I did with them. I looked around for a new video-editing program.

  I have had the higher-end Adobe stuff for years, I have CS2 and love it. I was thrilled to see the Premier 8 at a very affordable price.

  This program is a total trainwreck. I’m sure it will create wonderful video, but not in my lifetime, it takes too much time to reboot after numerous crashes.

  I read one review that said it wouldn’t run with ASUS hardware, too bad, the motherboard in my AMD machine is ASUS. I didn’t know that before. But the thing won’t run right on my Dell Dimension 8300 either. 4 GB ram on both of them, the AMD machine is an X64 dual core in excess of 3 gHz clock. XP 32-bit, SP3.

  I would still think about upgrading my CS2 someday when I actually have to leave XP, but after this I’m not as sure as I was before.

  I’m sorry I bought it, at least right now. It does have potential, but the productivity even for hobby/home use is pitiful. Reboot takes quite a bit even on a fast machine, and I have to do a lot of them.

  I wouldn’t recommend buying this program until they fix the bugs and you call their pre-sale customer service and go over your system and get them to assure you it’s all good! I gave them 1-star because I thought 0-stars might not register. It deserves 0-stars. Lots of Bells-and-Whistles, no meat.

  This is a real surprise, Adobe is usually excellent. A dark surprise.
• William C. Dreisbach
  July 8th, 2010 on 5:36 pm

  Review by William C. Dreisbach for Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 8
  Rating:
  OK, I downloaded the trial version of premiere 8 to get the new features. The thing was totally useless, hanging or crashing repeatedly. Old Premiere 7 projects or new from scratch – same problem. After sending back 5 or 6 reports, I started questioning why they released this, the quality is so poor. The reason I moved to Adobe (by the way, no major problems with Premiere 7) was the terrible track record with Pinnacle. I produce short videos – 3 minutes typically with 3 or 4 video tracks, and would expect an entry level program to do this. I will take the advice of the other reviewer and wait for version 9 … or 10. I’d strongly recommend you download this trial before purchasing this product. Good luck!