Product Reviews

Sometimes software packages score the maximum '6' rating because we simply don't see how they could have been done better. Sometimes - like this time - they get it because they're so obviously a complete and utter masterstroke, from the first moment you start them up. Sorry to spoil the suspense, but that's how it is.

So you want to know how we can possibly back this up? Well, here goes.

Photoshop Elements is positioned more or less where Photoshop 5LE used to be, as a kind of semi-advanced tool for those who've grown beyond the hand-holding of programs like PhotoDeluxe and PhotoSuite, but don't want the complexity or expense of Photoshop. You get the clean, elegant and oh-so-efficient Photoshop interface and now, with Elements, a massive injection of user-friendly instructions (via 'Recipes' and context-sensitive 'Hints' palettes), as well as drag-and-drop effects and near-instant fixes for common photo problems.

These go beyond the usual red-eye reduction (which Elements does well, incidentally) and contrast/brightness tweaks. You also get a skew corrector, for scans that went a bit wrong, and those tilting horizons. There's a 'backlight' tool that fixes up those shots spoiled by strong lighting.

This tool looks as if it simply tweaks the image's gamma setting - the overall colour cast, from bluish 'cold' lighting, to warm reds. It works very well, though, and doesn't devalue a tool that many photographers will come to swear by.

Oh, and there's so much more. Photoshop's always been the best there is at handling layers, and Elements doesn't sacrifice any of this usability. Indeed, it adds features previously only found in Photoshop, including editable layer 'styles' such as drop shadows, bevels

Like Photoshop, Elements has an easy-to-use background eraser tool for creating cut-outs around objects with awkward outlines, like animal fur or human hair, and it's a hundred times more effective than point-and-clicking with a polygon selection tool or trying to select areas of similar colour with a magic wand tool.

And what about Web graphics? Elements is still a little way behind specialised packages like PhotoImpact and even Paint Shop Pro, but it's borrowed the excellent image optimiser from its big brother, and it can also generate thumbnail pages semi-automatically using a range of predesigned Web page styles. It'll also export the HTML to go with it. You can finally create nice-looking Web buttons by dragging and dropping styles from a gallery.

Adobe has managed to address just about every complaint you could level against Photoshop LE. It's built in some of the powerful tools from Photoshop, and added the user-friendliness of PhotoDeluxe. And it's done all this without compromising the excellent Photoshop LE interface. Yes, there are lots of palettes, but they can either be stuck together in the now-familiar Adobe style, or - and this is new - dragged onto the main toolbar, where they're minimised into a title bar/tab, ready to open at the click of a mouse. It's a system used by Deneba's Canvas, and it works very well indeed.

The result of this clever design is a program that still manages to give the maximum space to your images and yet provides a vast array of easily accessible tools and effects. Much as we like MGI's PhotoSuite 4, we have to say that Photoshop Elements makes you realise how limited its interface has become.

OK, we'll stop for breath now. No, there are no real vector tools, it's not a full-blown Web graphics package, and it's still not exactly cheap. It's designed as an enthusiasts' photo-editor par excellence, and in that capacity we reckon Photoshop Elements has moved the goalposts so far back the rest are going to need telescopes to follow.