Photoshop Elements

Adobe PhotoShop is the best of the best in art editing. However, many people can't afford PhotoShop for a subscription or its lofty $1K+ USD price. So what's the next best thing? Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Elements take in many of the powerful features from Photoshop in a lite package. It is Photoshop for those who can't afford the full Photoshop suite. Since buying Photoshop Elements earlier this year, I have been pleased with just how much power and control I have with images than with almost any other program I've used. I even uninstalled PaintShop Pro X6 from my computer as well as The GIMP because of the power Photoshop Elements has.

As of this post (August 28, 2015), the latest version is Photoshop Elements 13. My story with PSE was with wondering if Photoshop Elements would work for me. Prior to Photoshop Elements, my only other Photoshop experience was with Photoshop 5.5 from my brother. I mentioned that I had PhotoShop X6 as my premier art-editing program. I was intrigued with PSP X6 because I had previously used PSP4 on my Windows 98 and WinXP computers. Over time, I felt like I needed something better to work with. PaintShop X6 was good, but not really great. I bought that program for about $75 USD. Photoshop Elements is almost $110 USD. At one point, I even wondered if I would want a bundle that included Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements. Premiere Elements is more like for people to make videos with.

So I went ahead and bought Photoshop Elements 13 looking for a better editing experience. While many people would probably use PSE for photo editing, I prefer using it for making and editing art. It is a great program to use with a handful of useful resources. The amount of control in editing pixels and layers and such is pretty good. Photoshop Elements really does have many of the key elements to help you make or edit digital art. Because I use it to design art for games and such, I rarely have used it to edit or modify any pictures of mine. All I know is that I felt more confident making an image from start to finish with PSE than I had with PSP X6. As long as you are not using the seriously powerful features, this is a fairly decent program to use if you're a pixel artist.

Remember I mentioned Adobe Photoshop Elements as a "lite" Photoshop? A number of features from the main Photoshop suite are missing. Among some of the many missing features include things like making layer groups, scripting, vector graphics, and more. Animation is possible with Photoshop Elements, but it is a bit cumbersome doing so. Don't expect the level of animation quality in Photoshop Elements like with Photoshop (or even the former ImageReady program from long ago). There are just some features missing from PSE that almost makes you lament not having the money to pay for the full Photoshop or even pay for a subscription for Photoshop. To put it mildly, Photoshop Elements is like being confident enough to drive anywhere you want, but you know you can go only so far. I certainly would recommend you invest in Photoshop Elements if you are looking for a powerful art editor. There are many features to Photoshop found in Photoshop Elements that you can live without if you are willing to sacrifice. Photoshop Elements isn't too light to where it lacks the power and polish of Photoshop. Photoshop Elements is Photoshop- only about ten times less expensive and with as many features as possible to give you the full Photoshop experience without having to pay for a full subscription or in buying the full program.

I would surely recommend Photoshop Elements as long as you have the requirements to run this program on your computer. Look online for resources on how to utilize your Photoshop Elements experience in case you want assistance. Remember that you can only do so much with Photoshop Elements with a number of the offered features. However, you aren't severely limited in what you can do with the program. So play around with it and make the most of your experience with Photoshop Elements.


Were you compelled by my commentary of Photoshop Elements and want to get it for yourself? Here are the latest versions of PSE that you can pick up on Amazon. Click on these items to learn more:


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