Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac

I'm not a huge photo buff so I have no direct experience with PS Elements. However, my Sister In Law is big into photography. She purchased Photoshop Elements for her Mac & loves it. I also went to a photography workshop put on by travel photographer Rick Sammon & he uses the full version of Photoshop for his photo editing. He told the group of us that PS elements would work great for 90% of us. That for most non-professional users Elements is a great package.

Of course he does sell a series of photoshop how-to cd's so his opinion may be biased, but his work is fantastic, so who am I to question.

I think you'd find it useful, yes. Certainly in the short term it'll probably be enough for you, longer term it's hard to say. It's the best lower cost option out there IMO.

By all means try TheGIMP, but I don't think it's as user friendly. Of course TheGIMP has the advantage of being free ;)

I'm using PSE 4. It does everything that I need to do (at the moment) with photos. Elements has been serving me for years, starting with PSE 2.

Perhaps I'll outgrow it and move on to the full featured (and quite expensive) version.

Perhaps not.

Personally I'd prefer an older version of the full version of Photoshop (off E-Bay or whatever) over Photoshop Elements.

Mike - what do you find useful in an older version of PS vs. what you would get with PSE?

I hate the way that everything works differently in Elements and the way that everything is dumbed down.

Once you get used to Elements, it is much more difficult to make the jump to the full version (which you might want to do later) because the interface is so different.
I hate relearning stuff.

Also a lot of stuff is missing like for example CMYK and Lab support.
You might want to open a PDF (that is commonly CMYK) or a Kodak Photo CD image and then you are screwed.

Also even if you don't think you will use all the functions, you might want to do something one day and you don't have the tools available.

Also I find myself using other people's computers a fair bit.
If you are familiar with the most popular applications, you stand a better chance of being able to get what you want to do done more quickly.

> Lightroom (photo tools without graphic tools) seems to be developing into the best option for serious photographers

I disagree. It's a great way to develop raw files, and a reasonable way to organise them, it won't replace PS as a photographic editor any time soon; possibly not ever.

No selection tools, no advanced sharpening options (just the one slider for amount), and no cropping; at least in the beta. I haven't used the final release version though.

OK, just checked the features for version 1.1. Looks like Adobe has come up with yet another way to dip cash from photographers' pockets.

Rumor was that the cropping, selection stuff would be added in the post beta version. That the beta was an intentionally crippled product in order to keep fully usable free versions from floating around.

What the folks at Adobe have done is add a brand new "must have" product to the already overpriced PS.

I'm starting to develop a 'screw them' attitude.

Lightroom is an Apple Apeture copy plain and simple.

Adobe have no real interest in it except to ape Apeture.
They are more interested in Bridge because it feeds into the other CS applications.