Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 (Win/Mac)
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 List Price: $99.99 Sale Price: $89.99 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Eligible For Free Shipping 
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Product Description
Simply unlimited! The newest version of the #1 selling consumer photo-editing software, Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 delivers powerful yet easy-to-use editing options that help you tell your life stories in amazing ways. Make every photo look its best. Quickly share your memories on Facebook†; in Online Albums; and in printed photo books, cards, calendars, and more that look just the way you want. And automatically organize and help protect all your photos and video clips.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 software offers a complete solution for photos:
Details
- Make every photo look its best with easy-to-use editing options in Adobe Photoshop Elements 9
- Make photo books, cards, calendars, and other creations that look just the way you want
- Quickly share photos in fun, interactive Online Albums and on mobile devices
- Automatically organize all your photos and video clips from one convenient place
- Enjoy automatic online backup with 2GB of free storage; access your photos and videos virtually anywhere
Rating
I upgraded from Photoshop Elements (PSE) 6 for Windows to PSE9 for Mac and was glad to see that the Mac and Windows versions were essentially the same. Since I use iPhoto for organizing, I can’t say anything about PSE’s Organizer, but I gave the Editor a workout.
Elements is at the high end of what I’ll spend for a photo editor, and I buy roughly every third version to keep the price reasonable over the years, so it’s time, and I’m happy to say that 9.0 fits my needs . . . and then some.
Like PSE6, PSE9 it is a great overall photo editor. It does a good job of enhancing photos, either with a click of a button or just a few clicks if I happen to disagree with the Auto Smart Fix. It can process batches of photos that all need the same work done to them. And it has enough manual controls (histograms, contrast, brightness, shadows/highlights, red eye, color correction, layers, etc.) to do just about anything to a photo you can imagine.
Pros:
* It works smoothly with iPhoto; I could switch back and forth easily and quickly and open multiple photos at once for editing.
* It’s fast on my MacBook Pro.
* The editor hasn’t crashed yet, and I’m running through thousands of photos.
* All of the features that I’m familiar with from previous versions still work well, and some, like the magic lasso, work even better than before.
* Content-aware healing can perform minor miracles in my hands. In the hands of an expert, or someone with more patience, it can probably perform major miracles.
* The Guided Edits helped me visualize the steps involved for some of the more complicated features, which helped me make better use of the Full Edit.
* PhotoMerge Group Shot is incredibly easy to use. I had two photos shot at different distances, and PSE had no trouble making the necessary adjustments.
* Removing clutter from photographs is simple.
* Oh happy day, Elements now has layer masks, a feature that used to be the domain of its pricier sibling. Now you can make parts of a layer more or less opaque, allowing for some really neat effects. I won’t use this often, but a few of my photos are just crying out for it.
Cons:
* The Welcome Screen is still annoying. Fortunately, you can set it up to go straight to the Organizer or Editor.
* It still can’t batch process the Save for Web feature. Sigh.
* My camera has a panorama assistant but doesn’t stitch them together, so I was interested in PSE9′s enhanced panorama stitching. For the most part, it’s very easy. PSE does most of the work. Unfortunately, it created an enormous file–117mg–out of my five 5mg photos and ran out of RAM before it could finish everything–even after I maxed out the RAM in Preferences. I ended up with a very nice panorama but had to reduce the file size before doing some of the final touches myself. Then the final jpeg size turned out to be smaller than any of the individual photos.
* Yeah, I would have liked a manual.
If you are currently using PSE 8, there may not be enough new features to warrant an upgrade yet, though the content-aware healing might make it worth it. From version 6? Definitely.
If you have never used Elements, this is a great application with a bit of a learning curve. Get the free one-month trial, and borrow a book on it from the library. That’s where I’ll be headed once the manuals for version 9 show up.
Rating
This is indeed an extraordinary application. The improved Spot Healing Brush, and specifically the sublime Content Aware option, justify the price with plenty to spare.
BUT once upon the time there were printed manuals. Then they were on the CD and you had to print them. Now we are offered a twenty-meg 367 page pdf file to download and – if we can – print. This is preposterous, hence four stars not five. I have Barbara Brundage’s Missing Manual on order!
Incidentally does the boy on the box look like the President as a child or is that my imagination?
Interesting too that it has been released here (England) but not, I gather, in the USA. Generally the other way round.
Rating
Elements 8 & 9 are advertised by adobe Windows and Mac compatible but you had better have a Mac Intel version
or it won’t work. The Box says Universal WINDOWS & MAC BUT IT REALLY ISN’T AND THEY WON’T MAKE ADJUSTMENTS.
ITS NOT THE PRODUCT ITS THE COMPANY… BEWARE
Rating
The one star part: Adobe are at it again. For those who have Elements 7 or 8 the upgrade features in version 9 are so sparse as to make any right minded person baulk at paying what is a shocking amount of money for the additional features provided. It seems that when it comes to Photoshop Elements, Adobe have run out of steam. I’ve got version 8 and loaded up the trial version of 9 – several days later I was still looking for the difference.
The 5 star part: perhaps it is because Elements is such a good photo editor that Adobe don’t need to do too much to it. The product remains pretty much the same release after release, and that’s testament to the fine product it is.
If you’ve got Photoshop Elements 7 or 8, then stick with what you have (unless you have a bunch of $’s burning a hole in your pocket, that is). If you haven’t tried Photoshop Elements, then it is a superb editor, and nothing out there short of the full Photoshop, can touch it. If Elements is what you desire, then sure go for version 9, but version 8 can be picked up for a whole lot less money, and is just as good.
Oh, the Organizer, is the most awkward, convoluted means of organizing anything yet devised. Ignore that and you’ll get on great.