I’m a long time heavy user of Adobe’s Photoshop, but I tried out the $89 Photoshop Elements 6 just to see the difference between Elements and the full on version of Photoshop.

Is Photoshop Elements 6 for the Mac just a stripped down version of Photoshop, or does it offer most of Photoshop’s capability at a huge discount?

Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac users won’t ship until sometime in March. From what we’ve been able to see of Elements, it will be worth the wait. If you have not upgraded to the full version of Photoshop and you’re not a power user on steroids, Elements is a bargain at $89, even more so with the upgrade price of $69.

The full version retail price of Photoshop CS3 is about $600.

Adobe skipped Elements 5 on the Mac, but managed to update version 4 to version 5 on Windows, and version 6 came out last year. The Mac’s move to Intel may have had something to do with the timetable adjustments for Photoshop and Elements, as both are now PowerPC and Intel native.

The new Elements interface is different, and highly reminiscent of Pixelmator, though dark gray vs. nearly black.

It’s a dark, dark, dark world these days for interface design. Think Aperture. Think Lightroom. All this white text on a dark background makes dialog boxes more difficult to read.

While Elements carries plenty of the professional tools found in Photoshop, the intended user is different. Elements is aimed at consumer and amateur photographers. It’s easy enough for Mac newbies, but with enough tools to satisfy a graphics professional wannabe.

Elements has three basic areas to master. Edit images, Create images, and Share images. Navigating to each is easy with the tabbed workspaces on the right corner.

The Edit images area also has different modes, Full, Quick, and Guided. Full mode feels more like full-on Photoshop, Quick is similar to the QuickFix mode in Elements 4 for Mac. Only the Guided mode is new, and uses a few questions to get you where you want to be. I like the descriptions of the tools. That’s handy even for those of us who live in Photoshop.

Edit tools have been enhanced with better sharpening tools, color tools, and improved RAW support. Adobe’s CS3 Bridge is included in Element along with a number of new editing tools. Refine edge is new, borrowed from the full version of Photoshop.

The Create and Share modes are self explanatory. Edit a photo or image and then open the Share mode so you can export to a CD or DVD.

Or export to a web photo album, or simple email the image, or order prints, ala Apple’s iPhoto features.

The Create mode is an excellent way for the part-time photographer and Mac graphics newbie to present photos and images, which can be set up as a collage, PDF slideshow, or simply start with a Project Bin (which used to be called Photo Bin).

The built-in Artwork mode is loaded with frames, graphics, shapes, text elements, themes, and backgrounds.

I’ve used both Photoshop CS3 and previous versions of Elements and found myself somewhat surprised with my test run of Elements 6 for the Mac. There are some functions, especially those in the Create mode, which are easier than in Photoshop CS3. And many of the tools I use in the full version of Photoshop CS3 are also in Elements.

Not bad for $89. One more thing. The new version of Elements is much faster than previous versions and runs on Leopard and Intel Macs. That begs the question-- will you upgrade to Elements 6 or move on to the full version of Photoshop?

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

• Article by Wil Gomez • Published on Friday, January 18, 2008
• Category: What's New • 6 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Digg This • Shop Now

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Readers Talk Back:

Tonio Loewald says:

I recently came across a program called Photoline (pl32.com) that has most of Photoshop’s functionality, costs about $90 (59 Euros), and launches in one second (on any recent Mac). It doesn’t have a gorgeous interface, but it’s serviceable. Frankly, I’d recommend it over Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator (or, for many users, Photoshop).

— Posted on Fri Jan 18 at 11:22 pm by Tonio Loewald

Art says:

Punctuation goes inside the closing quotes. There are exceptions but I’ll de darned if I know what they are. And I don’t wanna look it up.

Not much bothers me, as long as I get the meaning. I’ve seen people double-space after periods and it leads to ROW (Rivers of white). It’s ugly and only applied to manual typewriters and maybe an exception or two. I actually had a grade reduced on a paper for NOT having two spaces after each period.

Old habits die hard.

— Posted on Fri Jan 18 at 8:22 pm by Art

Carol Mary Miller says:

Actually, language is a dynamic communication medium, so is subject to change over time, and does not always adhere to rules of the past. Note this from Wikipedia:

“More recently, to beg the question has been used by some as a synonym for “to raise the question”, or to indicate that “the question really ought to be addressed”. For example, “This year’s budget deficit is half a trillion dollars. This begs the question: how are we ever going to balance the budget?” This usage is often criticized by proponents of the traditional meaning, but has nonetheless come into sufficiently widespread use that it is now the most common use of the term. The phrases circular reasoning/logic/arguments have come to be used in places where logicians would tend to use “beg the question”.

In other words, “begs the question” is used often to mean “raise the question” therefore it becomes the same as ‘raise the question.’

Works for me and I’m a school teacher.

— Posted on Fri Jan 18 at 8:05 pm by Carol Mary Miller

SOS says:

Pet peeve: will people stop using, or misusing the phrase “beg the question”? It does not mean “sparks the question” or “raises a question”, etc. It refers to an informal fallacy in which the conclusion of an argument is snuck in as a premise.

-- philosophy prof.

— Posted on Fri Jan 18 at 7:16 pm by SOS

Art Nelson says:

Did they add rulers and grids and snap-to features?

— Posted on Fri Jan 18 at 6:16 pm by Art Nelson

dbhill says:

A big, and meaningful, difference I found between earlier versions of Elements and PhotoShop is the support for CMYK--Elements doesn’t and PS does. So what about the new Elements v.6? CMYK or no?

~Dennis

— Posted on Fri Jan 18 at 3:37 pm by dbhill

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