03/28/2008, 8:05pm, EDT
Friday, March 28th
Part II: First Look: Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac
Editing Pictures
In previous versions of the program, editing pictures meant knowing which tool to select and then knowing how to use a particular command, buried in one of its many pull-down menus. Although you can still use this method with Photoshop Elements 6, the main focus of the program is not only on adding new features and improving existing ones, but also making all features easier to use.
For example, one common task for editing pictures involves removing parts of an image, such as the background behind a person. In the past, this meant either dragging the mouse around the area you want to select, or using the Magic Wand tool to have the computer automatically select a certain area based on similar colors.
Since both methods can be clumsy, Photoshop Elements 6 offers a Magic Extractor tool, which lets you click on the items you want to keep and then click on any surrounding areas that you want to remove. The program then shows you a preview of how your modified image looks so you can decide whether to keep it or modify it some more.
If you routinely work with multiple files at once, Photoshop Elements 6 helps keep you organized by displaying thumbnail images of each file at the bottom of the screen in an area called the Photo Bin. By double-clicking on an image in the Photo Bin, you can switch to the window containing that particular file rather than manually wade through each separate window.
The Photo Bin helps you work with multiple files
Even a simple process of converting a color picture to black-and-white has been given multiple options for greater control, while still remaining easy to use. The program lets you manually adjust the Red, Blue, Green values of a picture, or choose a predefined black-and-white image style such as Newspaper or Infrared. With Photoshop Elements 6, you can choose to modify pictures manually for finer control, or select simplified options that let you alter a picture with a few mouse clicks.
Digital Photography Tools
Since the main audience for the program are digital photographers, Photoshop Elements 6 offers greater support for RAW files from a greater variety of digital cameras. Besides the ability to import digital camera files, the program can also pick a single frame out from a movie. Whether you capture the perfect image with a digital camera or a video camcorder, you can improve that image in Photoshop Elements 6.
Since few digital photographs will be perfect, Photoshop Elements 6 provides a series of automatic correction tools that can fix common problems in a single mouse click, such as Auto Contrast or Auto Red-Eye Fix.
The Enhance menu lists the program’s auto-correction features
One particularly handy feature is PhotoMerge, which lets you pick and choose parts of multiple pictures and paste them together. Now your merged picture contains the best parts of multiple images, but looks like it was captured in a single shot.
For more fun, the program’s blending technology allows you to take faces apart and paste them together to create new images. Take the nose or lips from your favorite movie star and see how they might look on you. By blending images together, you can create images that look like they were original photographs.
Conclusion
If you have a previous version of Photoshop Elements, version 6 is a massive improvement with new features, a refined user interface to make both new and old features more accessible, and native speed on both Intel and older PowerPC processors. Given the program’s low cost ($89.95) and packed feature-set that nearly rivals its more expensive sibling, Photoshop Elements 6 is a bargain for both novices and intermediate users.
Whether you just want to touch up pictures, modify and create new images, or output your pictures in a variety of formats, Photoshop Elements 6 will likely provide the features you need and be easy to use as well. You may be able to find less expensive Photoshop alternatives (such as the $59 Pixelmator), but you probably won’t find any program that blends advanced features in a simple user interface like Photoshop Elements 6.
Filed under: software, digital imaging, Graphics/Web Design
Other story tags: Adobe, Photoshop
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It also shows samples of fonts in the font selection tool, which is something I've wanted for years.
It's not much faster than Elements 3: I have a Mac Mini Core Duo 2.0 GHz with 2 GB of RAM, so Elements 3 ran through Rosetta: Elements 6 is native. I did notice that when Elements 6 starts up, it loads a "Core PPC" library. Oh well. At least it's not a step backwards.
At last, Elements has a decent dock icon.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from Elements 6. Adobe applications tend to me lumbering monoliths with poorly organised user interfaces. But this version is a definite improvement over Elements 3. It's a tiny bit faster and is nicer to use because it has a better interface.
If you're not keen to cough up $70 and choke back the 1.3 GB download, you could probably get it bundled for free with some useful bit of hardware in a few months, such as a Watcom tablet.