Photoshop Elements ver. 2 versus ver. 4

We didn't bother to ugrade from PSE ver. 2 to ver. 3 because 3 didn't
offer that much more than 2 and the upgrade didn't seem to be worth the
money. However, we were just given a coupon for an upgrade to ver. 4 at
less than 1/2 price. Is 4 worth it? Is it that much better than 2? I
know it's much more difficult to add Curves to 4, but the new Hidden Power
book for 4 claims to be able to do it.

Thanks!!!

Steve . . .

 

Personally, I upgraded to 4 a couple of months ago and I am unwhelmed
and am thinking of trashing it. They have tried to make everything
"easier" and have thereby taken away your ability to do things in ways
they don't want you to. For example, for the function that makes
websites, it has lost the ability to make the site as many rows long as
you would like. Some designer said the site should be X number of rows
and X number of rows it is. If you use that function, it is worth
keeping 2 around just for that.

They have also added on a bunch of marketing crap. Push a button and
get stamps delivered to your house. Who the heck cares? Order prints
online -- but I don't use YOUR company. Etc.

Still trying to figure out their photo filing software and judging
where it is worth using or not.

It's too bad they didn't make it a better program.

But you may like it. I don't know. As for me, it was a major
disappointment.

 

I think so.

I has a photo of my daughter on the back of the box so of course it
has to be better.

 

Yes. In fact, I felt that version 3 was more than worth the upgrade
price, but that 4 didn't offer as much advantage over 3 as 3 did over 2.
What one wants/needs comes into play there. There is also the
consideration that if you don't upgrade for a while, you may lose
support for your version. Go for it!

 

This is not a question that can be answered simply.

I personally think it was worth it. I upgraded to 3.0 and then to 4.0
and felt both were worth it to me. It took a couple of months each time for
me to learn enough about the new versions to feel that way. Each time I did
not like the new product until I got comfortable with it and more
knowledgeable of it's features.

 

I have a Mac and iPhoto 6 (part of the iLife suite), so my needs from
Photoshop Elements are minimal. Some things that iPhoto has that
Photoshop Elements doesn't have are true "Exposure" and "Color
Temperture" controls. These work just as exposure on a camera works and
the Temperature has a warmer-cooler type of control. The Exposure
Controls work much better than the Brightness and Contrast control which
tend to affect each other. The Temperature Control gives one control
correction for skylight or flash or other errors in color temperature
and avoids the messy tweaking of three different tint controls.

Where Photoshop Elements excels is with its Shadows/Highlights control
which Lighten Shadows and Darken Highlights and the Rubber Stamp which
removes telephone poles, wires, etc. These are the most used controls I
use in Photoshop Elements.

The new editing features in Photoshop Elements 4 are the magic selection
brush, enhanced retouching, skin tone correction, and enhanced
background selection and editing or removal. I find these features
valuable to me, some may not.

 

That's as good of a reason to use it as any, better than some. Did you
take the picture? How did it wind up on the box?

I probably have my box around here somewhere, if I find it do you want
it for your collection or do you have enough copies already?

 

Yes, I took the pictures. I used to work for Adobe and they sent
around an email asking if anybody had photos they wanted to
contribute. So I sent a bunch and they used a couple.

Rest assured I made sure I had at least two copies of Elements 4.
Although my daughter screamed the first time she saw her picture on
the box.

 

LOL! What a great story.

 

To me, it would have been more logical if version 3 had been released
as version 2.1 and version 4 as version 2.2; but in that case you
cannot charge people for a new program

 

Of course you can. Many major players in the industry charge for going
up .1 revision level. Check the version numbers on Windows 2000 and
Windows XP.

 

Or the Mac OS X version numbers between OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), 10.3
(Panther) and 10.4 (Tiger). No upgrade, $129 each.