Photoshop Elements review

Adobe Photoshop dominates the high-end of the photo-editing market but for most potential users it's simply too expensive to consider. An obvious solution is to produce a cut-down version at a cut-down price, and that's exactly what Adobe attempted with Photoshop 5 LE (Limited Edition) - but it's actually not that simple. LE proved overpowered in some areas, underpowered in others and generally too complicated for its target audience. Adobe claims to have learned the lessons of LE and its all-new Photoshop Elements promises a truly dedicated mid-range solution built on Photoshop's unmatched photo-editing engine.

When the program first loads, the Photoshop connection is immediately apparent in the Photoshop Elements interface. The good news is that Photoshop itself has moved on a long way since version 5. The presence of the context-sensitive Options bar means that all necessary power is always to hand, while the Palette Well ensures that the wide range of floating palettes can be tidily minimised when not in use. In addition, Elements adds its own main toolbar providing one-click access to the most common file and editing commands.

Adobe has also worked on improving the help it offers. When you launch the program an opening dialog points you in the right direction by offering a variety of options - Open, Create and Acquire. As you work, help is on hand from the context-sensitive Hint and task-based Recipe palettes. The basic information available from the Hints palette is hardly worth the space it wastes, but the Recipe palette is more useful and it's also 'live', allowing you to click on each step's 'Do It' button. It's a big step on from LE but when compared to a truly transparent, task-based program such as MGI PhotoSuite, there's still a long way to go.

The Photoshop advantage

Where Elements has an unfair advantage over the competition is in terms of power. As you'd expect, Elements shares the same core pixel-based colour handling and layer-based composition handling that makes Photoshop so dominant. But that's only the beginning. Since the release of Photoshop 5 LE there have been two releases of Photoshop, with 5.5 adding serious Web capabilities and 6 adding impressive vector shape handling - Photoshop Elements includes them both.

The obvious question is: what power has Adobe missed out? Well, to begin with there's the support for high-end image modes, such as CMYK, that are essential for the print-orientated professional. Similarly, the Web-orientated professional would miss ImageReady and the ability to automate workflows through the use of the Actions palette. Other omissions are the Channels and Paths palettes. Otherwise, from the range of filters and adjustment layers through to the History palette and Liquify commands, the vast majority of Photoshop's power is here.

Look more closely though, and you'll see that this isn't quite the full story. Yes, Photoshop's Save for Web command is still here, for example, but the most advanced features - such as Lossy GIF and variable JPEG compression - have been cut. Likewise with Photoshop Elements' vector handling, where free transformations and style-based formatting are possible but you can't edit nodes or create your own styles. Of course, this works in Adobe's favour by ensuring that Photoshop Elements doesn't compete with Photoshop itself, but helps users by keeping things simple. The History palette, for example, offers a multiple undo but doesn't confuse matters with snapshots and history brushes - instead the most useful Art History tool is brought out as a dedicated Impressionist brush.