elements 6

[BethS]

Hi guys (and gals)

I recently bought photoshop elements 5. When I click on the online help button it takes me to their site for elements 6 as well as a the premiere photo something or other bundle for the low, low upgrade price of 119.00

Does anyone have either of these programs and do you recommend them? I feel like the version I bought (elements 5) was outdated even though I paid 80.oo for it. grrrrrr.

any advice?

Beth

[rkligman Profile Private messageWebsite]

You might be entitled to a free upgrade, especially if you got 5 within the last 30-60 days. Even 90 might make it for some companies. I don't know what 6 added to 5 so I can't comment on whether the features are worth it or not.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

You do have to be careful when you buy this stuff - do the research and
make sure you know what the current version is. I noticed Costco the other
day selling Sony Vegas Movie Studio version 6.0 --- version 8 just came out
a month ago so they are better than a version behind (usually they are
better than that though). Look at the vendor's web site - you don't have
to buy from them, but it is worth your time to make sure you know what
the current version is.

mikey

[BethS]

Thanks Rick for the advice. I just got off the phone with Adobe and I am eligible for a free upgrade to elements 6. I just have to pay the ground shipping of 5.00 which is fine with me.

Big hug!!

Beth

PS. I LOVE San Diego!!!!

[hardsoftware Profile Private message]

Beth,

The Adobe bundle you are speaking of is probably Photoshop Elements 5.0, and Premier Elements 3.0 which is the NLE video editor. I am not sure what the bundle will be for Photoshop Elements 6, probably Premier Elements 4.0. Anyway, I have the Photshop Elements 5.0/Premier Elements 3.0 bundle and I use both. I actually still use Photoshop Elements 2.0 the most because I am so used to it after coloring lots of b&w photos over the past 3 years.

Mikey is right about knowing what the current version should be. I went to Best Buy this morning and they still have copies of Photoshop Elements 4.0 along with version 5.0 along side on their shelves and no version 6.0 in sight.

Ben

[briancbb Profile Private message]

Who's trying to catch Mikey on their posts count

[hardsoftware Profile Private message]

Holy Moly, sorry about the repeated posts, don't know what the heck happened. Not trying to catch anyone, and noticed that it still only counts at one post Will try and delete the extras.
Ben

[BethS]

thanks Ben,

I should have the elements 6 in the mail in a few days. I looked at the comparison list and it looks like it will do a bit more than 5.

I think it is impossible to keep up with all of what is new and what is old and what is outdated. You could go crazy with all of it. I did find that all of the editing I was doing just using power point now takes seconds instead of miunutes with elements. I am so happy.

Beth

[Bill McMahon]

Wow ... Adobe sure is slick. I evaluated Elements 5 via a trial download from Adobe but then decided to buy it in the box, thinking there would be some additional goodies inside (like a comprehensive manual). No manual inside, just free access to some online tutorials for a brief period of time. I purchased the box about the middle of September but the evaluation period was valid only through the end of September. As luck would have it I was away scheduled for vacation and just returned yesterday (October), so I'm out of luck for the tutorials. No mention from Adobe about the planned introduction of version 6!
Bill

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

One thing that may be of interest to some with the new Photoshop Elements 6:
From what I have been reading, their picture organization stuff has been switched
from an ODBC database (which Access could read) to SQLite in version 6.
I have not looked into it at all, just basing it on comments over in the IMatch
organizing software group recently on this topic. There is usually one of two
responses to this kind of information ...

1) Hey cool - been waiting for that !!!
2) What did he say and why do I care ???

Both are appropriate - it just depends on your level of interest in these things

mikey

[BethS]

Everytime I get new software it is like Christmas......(this from a Jewish girl ).......I just like to play with it and see what it does. I have not idea how any of this stuff really works or why it is so easy for me to just figure it all out. I won't look that gift horse in the mouth though.

so, in response to that last post mikey.......#2 is the answer for me. Huh? What in the world did any of that mean? No! Don't answer that cuz I won't understand it.

hugs
Beth

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

One thing that may be of interest to some with the new Photoshop Elements 6:
From what I have been reading, their picture organization stuff has been switched
from an ODBC database (which Access could read) to SQLite in version 6.
I have not looked into it at all, just basing it on comments over in the IMatch
organizing software group recently on this topic. There is usually one of two
responses to this kind of information ...
1) Hey cool - been waiting for that !!!
2) What did he say and why do I care ???

Okay, at the risk of severe thread drift, Mikey that sounds interesting so I'll bite -- what did you say and why would I care?

Oh, and while you're at it, what's "...IMatch organizing software group.." (and why would I care?)

Dick

[BethS]

Dick,

That made me smile.

Beth

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

OK, IMatch ( from http://www.photools.com ) is a neat piece of software
for organizing your digital photos. It allows you to assign multiple categories
to each photo ( who, where, when, flowers, red etc) and allows you to select
from your collection based on the criteria. It also has the ability to not only
insert your categories etc in the IPTC header of jpegs, but it can also deal
with the "sidecar" files that Photoshop and Elements use for maintining additional
information about a picture. It can also deal with "off-line" pictures (on DVD
or someplace else etc). It maintains a database that has the picture information,
a thumbnail, where to find the picture etc. One of the neat features about
IMatch is how it allows you to either drag-and-drop or pop up a category tree
and assign the pictures to the various categories. When you start getting
thousands of pictures, it is important to be able to find all pictures of
"red flowers" or "joe at the beach" (you would have assigned all pictures with
Joe in them to the category "joe" which could be under your family. All pictures
that had beach scenes in them would have been assigned to the beach (some
also might belong to "water" and "sunset" etc). Simple queries could return any
pictures of joe on the beach at sunset for example. The ODBC database that
many organizating utilities use is limited to 2 gigs if I remember correctly (including
space taken up by thumbnails). The SQLite apparently can handle terabytes of
information. If you are interested in getting a handle on your digital pictures
(including scanned pictures), here are some links well worth looking at:

IMatch -- http://www.photools.com (be sure and check out their tutorial also)
IMatch forum: http://ptforum.photoolsweb.com/

A thread from this forum (where Dickk was part of it) talking about
Digital Asset Management (the DAM book)
http://www.proshowenthusiasts.com/viewtopic.php?p=33191

There are a number of utilities out there for handling your pictures - each
has strong points and weak points. I found that for me, it looked like IMatch
would fit the bill ( I also have a copy of Thumbs+, but it is a bit awkward in
handling some of the details I want and they do not seem to be actively working
on improving it).

The sooner you start with a system of naming and organizing your pictures,
the less of a headache it will be later when you realize you can't find ANYTHING.
As far as the Adobe switching to an SQLite based database, it does allow much
larger numbers of records, a larger database (more pictures, more detail) and
if it is based on a SQL flavor, you should be able to work with it in Linux, MacOS
etc if you are familiar with SQL (I have not played with SQLite myself although
I have done some SQL stuff with databases). I had originally mentioned it since
I have no way of knowing what everybody does around "here" -- some could
care less what a database even is, while others may have spent the last 20
years working in the SQL world with big database applications.

Well, there you have it ... my fingers runneth over

mikey

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

Thanks Mikey. Took a quick look at the IMatch site and a few reviews and forums and it looks worth the time to evaluate. I've played with a number of image management programs and have yet to find one I really like.

I used Organizer in PhotoShop Elements but I'm not convinced it will hold up very well if I use it for what my image collection will grow to in the next couple years (assuming I actually get busy with the scanner and the film scanner). Right now the collection is >7,500 files but it will grow by at least double or triple that if I'm diligent about the scanning. At which point I really need something other than the directory tree to organize them. I found Organizer to be "okay" but it really doesn't "think" like I do and I felt like I was fighting it to get stuff organized the way I wanted. I also didn't like the fact that I lost the Organizer DB info when a drive crashed because I didn't realize where it was being kept. Fortunately some of the category data was in the IPTC inside the images, but unfortunately not all.

Will take a look in the next couple weeks.

Dick