Adobe Photoshop Elements – Review

I have been using GIMP for quite some time now and am still using it. I have been telling people to use GIMP when they cannot afford for software like Photoshop CS3 due to high costs. It does not serve to pirate them either. The solution to keep practicing your skills when you cannot afford is to use open source software.

Cost

There is also a class of affordable software like full version of ArtRage which costs around $20. And if you can afford a bit more, there is Photoshop Elements. It is sort of a lite version of Photoshop CS3. It costs $99 when you buy it first time, or a $79 for an upgrade.

Did I buy it? Not actually. I got mine, bundled with the Wacom Intuos3 Graphic Tablet I had bought months earlier. I was so facinated in experimenting with the tablet, that I had not realized, I had gotten one with Photoshop Elements bundled along with it – albeit version 4. I just happened to discover it couple of weeks back when I was sorting out the packaging.

So, if you do not yet own a tablet, and plan to buy one, see if you can get a deal that has Photoshop Elements bundled.

Features

As a matter of fact, there is not much that keeps Photoshop Elements unique from GIMP when it comes to simple photo touch ups and digital painting. Though Photoshop Elements is marketed as a photo manipulation product for hobbyists, it still packs enough of the features that can be used to create art from scratch. It has same set of features like GIMP – standard free form painting, cropping, transformations, layers, smudge, burn, dodge, blend and quite a few others. It does not have a CMYK support as I know of – similar to GIMP which is available in Photoshop CS3.

The things that I believe worth spending the money would be the brush engine of Photoshop Elements. I believe it is almost at par with Photoshop CS3. The set of unusual brushes that comes with it is quite useless, but with the engine, creating your own custom brushes would be far powerful than GIMP, even after its recently released features. For photo enthusiasts, the features like red-eye reduction, and straightening tool would come handy.

To buy or not to?

Well that really depends to what extent you want to get into art. Speaking only in terms of professional digital painting, and if you feel you want something more than GIMP, I would say wait and save up until you can buy pro software like Photoshop CS3 or Painter X. If you can get it bundled with some hardware like graphic tablet, then consider it.

If you are a hobbyist when it comes to art and feel GIMP is not sufficient, or if you have too many friends invovled in art and design – and need to share and collaborate, then you can buy Photoshop Elements. It supports PSDs – naturally.

Disclosure: The Amazon link above is a referral link.