Review: Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 + Organizer
updated 08:00 pm EDT, Mon May 23, 2011
Replaces Bridge for photo management
Adobe Photoshop Elements is the budget-priced alternative to full-blown Photoshop, saving hundreds of dollars while retaining many of the same features wrapped in a more consumer-friendly interface. The latest version responds to customer criticism of Adobe Bridge by replacing it with a port of the Windows version's Organizer, and adds features borrowed from the recently-released Photoshop CS5 such as the context-aware tool. Will these moves prove a winning combination for non-expert users? Can complex effects really be made easy? These questions and more will be answered in our full review.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2009
Thanks for the heads-up
Your review answered my questions, albeit indirectly:
1. Is Adobe still doing horrible things to the Mac GUI? Yes.
2. Does Photoshop Elements still have the !@#$^& "palette drawer", and still try to take over the whole screen without using a window? Apparently.
3. Does Photoshop Elements try even harder than before to railroad you into a dumbed-down interface instead of letting you actually use the tools? Looks that way.
I may still buy it -- the alternatives are either the way-too-pricey-for-my-purposes Photoshop, or else a bunch of not-ready-for-prime-time alternatives like Pixelmator and Acorn. But I can tell it won't be an improvement, in the ways which the old versions infuriated me -- quite the contrary.