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sanking
30-Dec-2010, 15:09
Could someone comment on the limitations of Photoshop Elements 6 compared to Photoshop CS3 through CS5? I use both CS3 and CS5 on MACs but am thinking of installing Elements on a PC netbook for doing some minimal work on image files when traveling.

Sandy King

pherold
30-Dec-2010, 18:20
I can speak to the color management differences between the two.
Elements does not have a means of "soft-proofing" - that is, previewing on the screen through the same printer profile that you would use to print. Photoshop does have this feature in View > Proof setup. The advantage here is that with soft proofing you get a much more realistic view of what your image will look like when printed. This difference is more pronounced if your image contains a lot of saturated colors, or if your printer has a fairly limited gamut.

http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Printer_to_Match_my_Screen#SOFT_PROOFING

Of course, if you are just doing minimal work, this might not matter. Considering the limited gamut of laptop screens, you would probably not want to do much color correction work there anyway.

D. Bryant
30-Dec-2010, 18:37
Could someone comment on the limitations of Photoshop Elements 6 compared to Photoshop CS3 through CS5? I use both CS3 and CS5 on MACs but am thinking of installing Elements on a PC netbook for doing some minimal work on image files when traveling.

Sandy King

ACR for Elements is very limited compared to the full version shipped with Photoshop ACR if you are interested in RAW processing. Also I'm pretty sure Netbooks do not have enough screen resolution to install Elements, Photoshop, Light Room, or OEM photo software. Contact Don Hutton regarding that though, he may have figured a work around for that issue.

Additionally most Netbooks I've used or am familiar with are pretty under powered for editing though they do make a good device for downloading image data from card readers.

Optionally you may wish to consider an iPad though I'm waiting for the release of the new iPads at the 2011 CES show. The current crop of iPads aren't worth considering for most things IMO in it's current state, although I think the iPad has some fun features. Additionally there maybe a whole slew of Android tablets along with some more advanced netbooks being introduced to consider. And Microsoft may introduce a Windows 7 tablet. Just don't be mislead by the iPad fanbois.

You may also wish to investigate Adobe Online here:

http://www.photoshop.com/tools

Going forward with the introduction of browsers that support HTML5 online photo editing may become quite common and advanced along with cloud computing and storage.

There maybe other Netbook compatible editors that I'm not aware of that could be worth mentioning, perhaps someone else will chime in.

Good luck,

Don Bryant

jp
31-Dec-2010, 05:11
I was thinking it didn't have curves or levels; one or the other. It came free with something I bought. I uninstalled it for that reason. gimp and paint.net are other alternatives. I use gimp for some things, but it does not do more than 8 bits per color channel. Your photoshop license may allow you to put a second install on a laptop, but whether your laptop could handle it is another question.

Jim Jones
31-Dec-2010, 06:42
I still use PSE5 rather than upgrade to later versions that might be slightly better. PSE4 suited me just as well. Picture Window Professional lets me do major curve adjustment in 16 bit. This old dog would rather spend time using basic, but familiar, programs than in learning new tricks.

sanking
31-Dec-2010, 09:35
ACR for Elements is very limited compared to the full version shipped with Photoshop ACR if you are interested in RAW processing. Also I'm pretty sure Netbooks do not have enough screen resolution to install Elements, Photoshop, Light Room, or OEM photo software. Contact Don Hutton regarding that though, he may have figured a work around for that issue.

Don Bryant

Don,

Before asking the question I had done a search to see if I could install Photoshop Elements on a PC Netbook and got back the answer that yes, with the minimum configuration being 1 GB of RAM, 2 GB of free hard disk space, and a processor of at least 1.6 Mhz.

Since I have 2 GB of RAM, 160 GB or hard disk space, and a 1.66 processor so I rather assumed there would be no problem installing the program. I have not actually installed the program because I need to first pick up a DVD drive as the netbook does not have one.

Anyway, I wll let you know how it comes out once I get my hands on a DVD to USB drive.

It is no big deal for me if it does not work as the main use of the netbook will be to stitch some images together with a program that does work on the netbook, and of course upload the files to the netbook and then send them to me.

Thanks for your comments,

Sandy

Ash
31-Dec-2010, 10:12
Everything has been covered by the others, but I'll chime in and say that because I can't afford a legal copy of CS, I bought Elements.

So far Elements has more than enough editing facility, but it's laborious for simple tasks, where CS is a dream to use. That said you get what you pay for.

Kuzano
31-Dec-2010, 14:33
On occasion, and external DVD burner on a Netbook does not respond the the autorun file on an installation disk. This is intermittent in my experience, and when the drive does not read the disk and bring up installation, you merely need to access the Drive and locate the "setup" file for the program and double left click that file.

Elements 6, 7, and 8 are quite capable and the instruction manual from Adobe Press is the best tutorial I have found.

However, I truly dislike the Organizer in any of the elements versions and I always disable it. I consider tags, version sets, and stacks, plus the catalog type of data locator quite a waste of time and far inferior to manually controlling files and folders in Windows.

sanking
3-Jan-2011, 18:19
ACR for Elements is very limited compared to the full version shipped with Photoshop ACR if you are interested in RAW processing. Also I'm pretty sure Netbooks do not have enough screen resolution to install Elements, Photoshop, Light Room, or OEM photo software.

Don Bryant

Don,

An update on this. I was indeed able to install Photoshop Elements 9 on my PC netbook. Not sure if I will be able to do any useful editing with this configuration but for sure there was no problem with the installation. The installation took a very long time, maybe over an hour, but it completed fine.

Sandy