eric_palmer1 Posted October 20, 2002 Share Posted October 20, 2002 I'm building a digital darkroom and have a limited budget. I'm an amateur with 20+ years of snapshooting and 6 months of serious learning and improvement. Initially I want to touch up some photos, adjust color and sharpen photos for printing on a canon and display on photo.net. I do want to start out with proper color management so that I build good workflow habits. I'll use a color vision spyder with photoCal for my monitor calibration. Can I do what I want to with Photoshop Elements? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark d. Posted October 20, 2002 Share Posted October 20, 2002 Eric, I had used Photoshop 6.0 for awhile and then picked up Elements when I transitioned to Mac thinking that it had most of everything that I needed. For the most part, it does. It's missing control over the Channels and Curves (which I require for my digital B&W printing). I've been looking around for deals and on *bay, there are some reputable sellers that pair an older non-registered version of Photoshop with the Photoshop upgrade for about $300. I've seen Elements go for around $100. If you can manage the difference, it might be worth it in terms of thinking long term and the possibility of getting more sophisticated with your Photoshop work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmac Posted October 20, 2002 Share Posted October 20, 2002 You could try Picture Window, it does all of the above & lots more for <$100 http://www.dl-c.com/aboutpw.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_suter Posted October 20, 2002 Share Posted October 20, 2002 Eric,<BR> <BR> The answer to your question about the suitability of Elements appears to me to be "No". I say this because if you are serious enough about this to invest in the ColorVision Spyder to calibrate your monitor, you are probably serious enough to rapidly become frustrated by the limitations of Elements. It does not have some of the tools that you really want for serious work, such as curves. It will also not work with 48-bit color, which is often not needed, but is a blessing when you do need it.<BR> <BR> Based upon what you say you intend to do, I doubt that you need some of the features of the big-buck version of Photoshop, such as CYMK separations. For the need you have, I suggest that you look at a product called "Picture Window Pro" from <I>Digital Light & Color</I>. It is only $89, includes everything a photographer really needs, and will do all of its editing in 48-bits if needed. In addition, the author is very active on the DL&C support forum and happens to be a serious amateur photographer who is also a professional programmer (he wrote Lotus 1-2-3, among other things).<BR> <BR> As a plus, you can download a fully functional copy of the program from the DL&C web site that will work for 30 days before you have to decide if you wish to pay to keep it working. Accordingly, you have no financial risk involved in determining if "Picture Window Pro" meets <b>your</b> needs.<BR> <BR> With best wishes,<BR> - Tom - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Katz Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 Picture Window Pro also provides full color managment support. I believe the color managment support in Elements is very limited. Tech support for Picture Window Pro is excellent, with most e-mails personally answered within 24 hours (sometimes within minutes). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott_blair1 Posted October 21, 2002 Share Posted October 21, 2002 Elements is included with a lot of products; buy software last. I have Elements, and had never used curves, although I knew about it. Then I got a scanner with PS5LE included, which does have curves. I played with it for about a day, and decided it was unnecessary, at least for me. (Following will be 101 reasons why everyone must have curves.LOL) I guess it would be handy if you will be doing restoration of old photos. Anyway, you can download Elements for a test drive from Adobe. One odd thing, Elements takes close to half a minute to load. I guess it builds a lot of wizards and such. PS5LE opens instantly, like a DOS program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msitaraman Posted October 22, 2002 Share Posted October 22, 2002 My $86 Canon flatbed scanner came bundled with (free) Photoshop Elements 1.0 and a couple of ArcSoft packages, the first an album and slideshow program (that includes audio and video clip capability), and the other PhotoStudio, a Photoshop lookalike. So whatever you do, don't go out and pay $100 retail for PS Elements, before you at least check out whether you can get it free with anything you might be planning to buy. I get Base 16 scans (3360x2240) for about $9/roll of 36 with my Fuji Frontier lab prints, and for the purposes of editing and manipulating these for strictly online usage such as emailing and creating digital slide shows(not printing) PS Elements is more than adequate. PS Elements 2.0 (the current version) has enhanced batch capabilites, which will ease your workflow headaches if you want to do batch contrast control and/or USM/sharpening etc. But for simple resizing PS ELements 1.0 has batch capability. Of course, you can get many of these other batch capabilities free with online freeware, such as the very capable ImageMagick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric_palmer1 Posted October 22, 2002 Author Share Posted October 22, 2002 Thanks for all the feedback. I'll be getting a wacom tablet that includes Photoshop Elements 2 for free so at least I can get started with it. <p>In another <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=003vMG">posting</a> the poster mentions that Adobe has offered an upgrade path to Photoshop 7 for about $300 for registered users of Photoshop Elements 1. I'm wondering if they are going to do the same for version 2 users? If so I'd love to save $300. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oleg_kosyakovsky Posted October 23, 2002 Share Posted October 23, 2002 If you have a powerful computer (P3 667 256 MB minimum), just download GIMP from www.gimp.org. It's free and does almost everything. Though it doesn't work with 48-bit images (converts them into 24-bit), has no CMYK support, and is heavy (just buy a good computer). Oleg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevierose Posted October 23, 2002 Share Posted October 23, 2002 Are you a student, or is a family member or friend a college student? If the answer is yes, then you can buy PS 7 for around $159 at an academic price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric_palmer1 Posted October 23, 2002 Author Share Posted October 23, 2002 Do you have to be a full time student or just a student at a full time school? I'm planning on taking a course at a Jr College in January! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevierose Posted October 23, 2002 Share Posted October 23, 2002 You will need to check with the school to see how many classes you have to be taking to qualify for academic discounts on software, but I strongly suspect that once you enroll at the junior college you will qualify for academic discounts on software and hardware. Also, if you are a student enrolled in a photography course some companies also extend discounts on photo equipment. I know that Mamiya does this as an example. At the University of Michigan the full version of PS 7 goes for $269. The upgrade version goes for $159. I hope that this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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