User guide

Photoshop Elements
A Course for the Beginner
Digital Image Editor
This new program was designed to intro-
duce the amateur digital photographer to
Adobe's Photoshop software. It is an ideal
choice for someone with the desire or need
to work with photos, scanned pictures and
other digital images but without the
resources or requirements for the full-blown
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 application. Having
said that I'd like to add that this program is
definitely not simply a more fully-featured
version of the free Adobe Photo Deluxe that
comes bundled with many scanners and
printers. This is a complete image-editing
software program which retails for only
$134.99 at MacWarehouse. With Photoshop
6.0 retailing for $964.99 its obvious that
Photoshop Elements is meant to introduce
the budget-conscious and new, non-profes-
sional users to Adobe's lineup. Having said
that, I'll examine Photoshop Elements to
show how and how well Adobe has
achieved this. its actually more of a scaled-
down version of Photoshop than a scaled-up
version of Photo Deluxe.
This program is definitely not Photo Deluxe but
then neither is it Photoshop 6.0. Nothing like.
Even for free Photo Deluxe is no bargain and
Photoshop 6.0 is one of the most powerful and
complex programs around, designed with
the educated, experienced commercial digi-
tal artist in mind. Photoshop Elements falls
in between, with easy-to-use robust fea-
tures designed for amateur photographers,
hobbyists, and business users who want to
create professional-quality images for print
and the internet.
The emphasis is on learning with this pro-
gram. To cover all the bases Photoshop
Elements comes with a big printed User
Guide, (280 pages, lots of illustrations), an
on-line help site accessible from the Menu
bar, and Hints, Recipes, Tutorials and Tool
Tips accessible from within the program.
Immediately after I installed and registered
the program I logged onto the free Adobe
on-line service and downloaded the latest
updated Photoshop Elements resource file
to make sure my Hints, Tips and Tutorials
have the latest improvements. By selecting
my Photoshop Elements folder as the desti-
nation, these files were automatically
installed.