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Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 8 Here is a short list of new or improved features in Photoshop Elements 8: Top new features in Adobe Premiere Elements 8: I installed both programs on the Lenovo ThinkPad R400 loaner running Windows 7 without a hitch.
The work tabs are similar to previous versions with the exception of the newly added Video options that seamlessly bring you and your work to Photoshop Premiere Elements 8.
Organizer has grown in capabilities. The Auto-Analyzer is a great way to have something judge your photos before you show them to friends. When it analyzed my 3000 China photos it found many that did not measure up. A Smart Tag was placed on each. The values are; High Quality, Low Quality, and Medium Quality. When I do camera tests I post almost all of the shots to show good and bad. When I am creating a slideshow or a group of photos for friends I use the best and can do that by selecting the High Quality tag. Sometimes I fudge it. If the medium quality shot is the only one that shows the location or person I need I just have to use it. It also can analyze and tag for contrast, objects, lighting, number of faces, and more.
I have never attempted to add more Personal tags to my photos in the past. You can imagine how much fun it was when I started to organize my files. It was much like the days when my wife enters my office and says “You need to clean up this mess. We have company coming.” I had no idea where to start. Keyword Tags in Photoshop Elements 8 allow you to sort by People, Places, Events and then divide those categories up further using subcategories. My largest collection of photos (3000) is from a recent trip to China and Tibet. I decided to start there. I added all 3000 photos to the Organizer. I started with Places and added China saving Tibet photos for another time. I then used bulk tagging for all of the photos that were China. After that I had to add tags for each area in China that we visited. (Beijing, Xian, Hong Kong, etc..) Even with the bulk tagging capability this can be time consuming. I liked the concept but hated the effort. I can assure you it is best to do all tagging while the photo shoot is still fresh in your mind. Once done I found the tagging effort is very valuable when searching for specifics. I hope to keep up the task in the future. Adobe continues to provide Adobe Plus online at Photoshop.com . This is a way to store copies of your photos away from your computer for added protection. It gives access to those you want to share them with if you sent them an E-mail link or post slide shows on a third party site like FaceBook and others. I use it in many situations. I also use Flickr. There are fees for access to both of these options if you used them heavily. A trial membership of Photoshop.com PLUS is free with 2GB of space included with this package. THE PROFESSIONAL PACKAGE IS $49.95 PER YEAR. The cooperation between Photoshop 8 and Premiere 8 really comes to life when you save a slide show and then Premiere Elements opens to create a video of the slide show. Add menu and titles. Then do the burn. Quoting Adobe: “So users can conveniently access both photo and video options we have added video options to the familiar Photoshop Elements tabs. Enhanced integration between Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere Elements 8 makes it easier than ever to switch between activities using the same media catalog. I created a quick slide show with 230 photos, some music, and a simple title. It took 8 minutes to create. Saving the show was done in seconds. I added another title and saved again in about 10 seconds. The show was burned to a DVD in WMV mode in 7 minutes. The actual length of the 230 photo slideshow is 15 min and 20 seconds. Note: it is possible to add multiple slide shows to the same DVD if there is room. This saves a little on media costs. Saving a WMV file while in Photoshop took about 6 minutes. When that was finished Premiere automatically opened. I decided not to add a menu for this test. Went to encoding media and took 9 minutes to complete that effort. Note: Early on I had some issues when burning to DVDs. The encoding went on and on for more than an hour. It never completed the task. When I checked with Adobe they asked me to check the available space left on the hard drive. It was less than 35 GB. I was told to make some space. I backed up and removed about 50 GB of photos and other work. I ran the same file through the encoding process and found the task was completed at a much higher speed. Those are the results I have posted above. PHOTOSHOP.com for online editing and other assistance.
The people recognition capability was also very good. I highly recommend the two program package of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere Elements 8. If you are working with both photos and videos the dual product package with similar layouts and work areas is the way to go. If you aren’t sure try the Trial version. I am sure that will help you make up your mind. It made me see the light. |
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