Adobe Photoshop Elements – Download.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You need your Photoshop Elements serial number to use the full version of the product. If you want to download photoshop elements 2021 some money, look at buying a monitor from Dell, Ben-Q, /14305.txt even LG, three companies that produce pretty good display products that are considerably more a ffordable. Although the compatibility of Windows and Mac computers used to be very minimal, their operating systems are now far more user-friendly, both in the way third-party hardware photohop such as external drives and in that downloav software is now shared be tween the tw o systems.
 
 

 

Download Adobe Photoshop Elements | ,

 

Desktop hard drives are the perfect way to keep up to date with backups — they are relatively inexpensive for the capacity offered, and if one fills up, it’s easy enough to buy another.

There are a number of excellent devices currently available from Seagate, LaCie, and Western Digital, to na me a few. Best practice is to install just your operating system and software applications onto the computer’s hard drive. Everything else — photos, music, and video — is saved to an external hard drive, or drives. That way, your computer can run at its optimum, while accessing your photo library on an external drive.

Once that external drive is full, it’s simple enough to carry on with a second, or even a third, external h ard drive. Other software: I appreciate suggesting “other” photo editing software is not a politically correct thing to do in a book written around Photoshop Elements. But in fact there are many other software apps on the market that can do certain things, such as HDR high dynamic range image making , far, far better than Elements.

To give you an idea, three products come to mind that will extend your image making capabilities sign ificantly:.

Painterly effects – Dynamic Auto Painter by Me diachance. Best plug-in rang e – JixPix. Laptop issues: If you absolutely have to use a laptop and a lot of photographers are entirely mobile these days , this is also a good option, although its storage space, computing power CPU , and screen size will all be compromised unless you spend a lot of money. One answer is to buy several external storage drives and a large desktop screen that can be hooked up to the laptop when you are working locally in the hom e office.

Laptops are designed to be lightweight and compact, so there’s never much storage space in them for all your files. Typically, we would buy a portable USB-powered hard drive for backups while traveling. Once home, it might make better sense to transfer all your work from the USB-powered hard drive to a physically larger desktop drive—these are usually cheaper, have a far greater data capacity, and are mostly more reliable.

As mentioned in Chapter 1 , Photoshop Elements General Features Overview , when images are imported into the Elements Organizer, they are not physically copied into the application; they are just linked from the place where they are stored typically, this is the Pictures folder to the Organizer. Should Elements or your computer develop a technical issue and you have to delete and reinstall the application, you just need to reinstate the catalog from the backup version, and it automatically re-links all files.

Sometimes, it’s necessary to actually point the program to the hard drive where the images are stored, but as often as not, Elements will search and find every image that was previously linked in the catalog. It’s a cleve r program. Import: Using the Import button on the top left-hand side in the Organizer , you can bring images, audio, or video clips into the Elements Organizer directly using the From Files and Folders option.

These files can physically reside anywhere — locally, on the computer, or externally on a drive. There are also options to import files directly from a camera or a card reader, or in bulk from pre-organized folders. The panel on the right-hand side of the main window holds both keyword and metadata information about each file.

Because of this linking process, it’s not advisable to rename or move files that have already been imported into Elements. If files are moved or renamed using the Windows Explorer or Mac’s Finder, the next time Elements starts, it will prompt you that the file is missing and immediately start a search for the file. This is fine if the name remains the same, but if it has a new name, it will have to be re-imported. You can leave Elements to complete the search, or do it yourself, if you know where the file was moved to.

How long Elements takes to locate a moved file depends on how big your photo coll ection is. The import process is fast because Elements only copies thumbnails and the metadata essentially text when it forms a link to the original files.

So, to avoid wasting time searching for files that have been renamed or moved after they were imported into the Organizer, it makes sense to sort out the storage hierarchy on the computer or external drives before importing to the ap plication.

We all have different ways with which to organize our busy photographic lives. Some prefer to store files by date, others prefer to name everything according to events in their lives. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. The best method is the one that you are going to remember.

Making albums: In this screenshot, I have created an album called Animals. Selecting the album on the left-hand side of the window will display the contents of that album in the main window. As with most features in Elements, an album can be renamed at any time. The huge advantage of creating albums, apart from enabling you to easily compartmentalize your work into smaller, more practical collections, is that you can have the same image or images in multiple albums without increasing the space taken up on the stor age drive.

Before you import a second batch of images, it makes sense to sort out the first batch, because if you continue to import folder after folder of images, before long, you’ll have thousands displayed in the main screen, and that can get very confusing. Once imported into the Organizer, you can see exactly where on your hard drives those imported files reside through the Folders menu in the left-hand bin.

That said, there are basic rules I can suggest that will make the editing process flo w better:. Auto Curate: Photoshop Elements has a number of quite powerful but often overlooked features — including this one, called Auto Curate , highlighted here in red, which picks the top images from the Organizer. The results might surprise you. With your media displayed in the main window, check the Auto Curate box and watch as Elements finds 50 of the best images from anything up to 20, images according to Adobe.

As I think most of the images in my test media are good anyway, it’s a mystery how it finds 50 or any number you choose of the best. Nonetheless, this is worth a look for a quick, frustration-free selection. Some photographers prefer to divide image collections into multiple catalogs. For example, wedding photographers might have a separate catalog for each client. For most of us, one catalog is enough because you can only open one catalog at a ti me anyway.

Most of the cheaper point-and-shoot type cameras only use JPEGs. RAW files are far less universal and require a specific software to work. As each new camera model produces an entirely new type of RAW file, Elements has to be updated reasonably regularly so it can keep up to date with all the new stuff coming on to the market. If you have just bought a new camera, don’t be surprised if Elements cannot read its RAW files. In the interim, you can always use the software that came with the camera to open RAW files or download the free Adobe DNG file format converter, convert your RAW files to the DNG format and edit from those till the new software is ready.

Looking at your media in the Organizer couldn’t be easier. The main window displays all media files in a mode called Grid View —these are adjustable-size thumbnails. But note that if you create and populate albums, the main window will only display the contents of e ach album. Compartmentalizing a photo collection into multiple albums, therefore, is an effective way to break up what would otherwise be a confusing mass of files populating or flooding the main screen into smaller, more visually digestible q uantities.

Every time you find an image that you want to keep or think needs editing, you can classify it using the number keys to add one, two, three, four, or five stars see the Organizing your work — ratings section later in this chapter.

Use these to sort and search for images. Pressing the number zero on the keypad removes all star attributes. You can also see that once expanded to full screen, you can also type in a caption for the displayed image and play any associated sound that is, if it’s a movie clip. Even better, there are no restrictions as to how many albums you can create and, since they are essentially virtual folders, they don’t take up much stora ge space.

As we expand our image and media collection, we’ll not only need large capacity hard drives, but also data backups. It’s important to perform backups in case the original drive corrupts, or suffers a mechanical failure. Nothing is forever and even though the drive might be a premium brand, things can still go wrong, usually when you least expect it. There’s no point in backing up images, or your Elements Catalog, to the place where the originals are also stored—typically your computer’s hard drive.

If it becomes corrupted, everything is lost. Consider a large-capacity hard drive that is used only for backing up your data: images, music, Elements’ Catalog, and so on. Most PCs have room for additional internal drives. If you use a Mac, you’d be best to buy an external h ard drive. If you are using a Mac, backing up your data is easy using a pre-installed Apple application called Time Machine. Windows users also have it easy because most quality external drives such as Seagate and Western Digital come with automated backup software included.

This software takes only a few moments to set up. Once done, you can forget it, because it automatically backs all your new material up every hour, day, or week depending on how you initially set up its preferences. Another viable option is to back up to the cloud. In many ways this is the most secure option as those companies spend an awful lot more on data security than any individual photographer! Above: Here’s a standard desktop hard drive with a massive 8 TB storage capacity, of the type easily purchased online or from most good computer stores.

It’s perfect for all your media backup req uirements. Top left: For most of us the purchase of a desktop hard drive is the perfect solution for media backup. Devices are not expensive, come in a wide range of models and storage capacities, and if you fill one with your image files, it’s easy enough to buy more to add to the library. Left: The two screenshots here show Western Digital’s free backup software available for Mac and Windows on the left, and Apple’s excellent Time Machine software utility, which comes pre-loaded on every Mac, on the right.

Some of you might be familiar with the Windows operating system’s star ratings. This is a feature that allows you to award a file from one to five stars, depending on their merit. You can then search for files in this context, images that are displaying X number of stars.

You might give your best images five stars, and those that need editing three stars — that kind of thing. Ratings appear in a wide range of photo editing applications, including Adobe Bridge, Lightroom, and CameraBits’ Photo Mechanic, for good reason—it’s a system that’s easy to implement and effective in its organizational potential. Here’s h ow to get this happening:. Step one: Right-click an image in the Organizer.

Step two: From Ratings in the contextual menu, slide over the number of stars y ou’d like to award that image from Or select one or more images in the main window, and hit any number key between 1 and 5 use the top of the keyboard not the number keypad to add a rating. Step three: To search for an already-rated image, click the appropriate star symbol in the Ratings search field top of the screen just under the Create tab , and everything in the main screen with that star rating remains.

All else is hidden until you click the same star rating again to zero th e search. Note that this search can be refined by clicking the tiny symbol to the right of the word Ratings to set Greater than, or equal to , or Less than, or equal to , or Rating is equal to. It can make a big difference to your search results. This is an exceptionally intuitive system that’s easy to set up, easy to modify, and very efficient in its search results—just use that pop-out menu to lower, raise, or delete the rating if required.

Contextual menu help: While sorting through recently imported images, get into the habit of right-clicking a thumbnail. This reveals a contextual menu that offers many options, but in particular reference to sorting images, you can choose from any of the following: Delete from Catalog, Edit with Photoshop Elements Editor, Edit with Premiere Elements Editor, Adjust Date good for when you cross different time zones , Add Caption, Add a Rating stars , Add a Person identified in the image for later searches , Create a Slideshow when more than one image thumbnail is selected , and Show File Info that is view the file’s metadata.

All g ood stuff. Metadata is little more than a small text file that records all your camera details at the time a photo is taken. We rarely read the metadata unless we specifically look for it or, in this context, use it to search for images.

Metadata records camera and lens details, date, time, size, resolution, filename, and if your camera has the feature, a set of GPS co ordinates. The advantage of metadata is that the information already exists, so we can use Organizer to search our image database using any of those pre-recorded metadata details for a fa st result. You might consider that the Find by Details Metadata search field looks a bit confusing because it offers so many ways to search for images. You can also use this dialog box to save frequently used searches—a real time-saver.

It can also be used to search for images by the date and time captured This is especially useful if you holiday in different ti me zones. By default it opens with Search for files which match any of the following search criteria by capture date—which you choose using the drop-down menu. This is a very wide type of search but as you’ll discover, you can click that left-hand menu to see 36 other search options.

As I write a lot about camera technique, I often search for specific things such as aperture f-stop , ISO setting, focal length, and White Balance, which makes the task of trawling through hundreds of potential image files a breeze. Another criterion I use a lot is to search for camera type , or the date taken —but if you are more interested in searching for people, for example, you can also access all of Elements’ other methods of search, including People tags , Event tags , and of course , keywords.

Quick information: The Information panel shown here shares space in the right-hand panel with Tags , and is quite comprehensive—there’s a compact version and an extended version seen here, currently occupying the entire right-han d panel. Above that is the General menu for the purposes of this illustration, it’s floating over the thumbnail picture grid, to the left of the extended Information panel.

This displays a few snippets of that file’s metadata, as well as the star rating and where it physically resides on your hard drives. Interestingly, the information displayed here is somewhat truncated when compared to the full search capabilities displayed through the Find menu—but nevertheless, it’s a good place to start yo ur search. Right-clicking any thumbnail and choosing Delete from Catalog brings up a dialog window asking if you also want to physically delete the original file from wherever it might be stored.

This is handy if you think it really needs to go! You can take your keywording as far as you have the time and patience for by being increasingly specific. For example, I could also keyword my holiday pictures with the words beaches, restaurants, funny signs, people, markets, night life, sunsets, palm trees, cocktails, and so on.

If you add multiple keywords, separate them with a comma , to avoid confusing the search engine. Limit keywords to five or six per image. Too many keywords can be counter-productive. One of the best features in Elements is its ability to sort out hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of images using the tested method of key word tags.

While viewing a newly imported batch of pictures, select a file by clicking it once and, on the bottom right-hand side of the screen, type in a keyword. Keyword tagging: You can see that, in the pink highlighted area, I have added the words ‘Surfing’ and ‘Australia’. I think keywording is one of the most important setup features in this program.

Get in the habit of adding a keyword, or keywords, to everything you import into the Organizer and you will be able to search, and find, almost any image weeks, months, and even years later. It’s an incredibly efficient and effective system of image r etrieval.

Let’s say you have got back home after a vacation. Select all the images from the vacation and type the name of the place you visited. If you went to Australia, for example, all images could be keyworded as ‘Australia’. But if half that time was spent in the mountains around the town of Katoomba, re-select those images of Katoomba alone and add ‘Katoomba’ as the keyword. If three days in Australia were spent surfing, select those images only, and add the keyword ‘surfing’.

This takes only a few minutes and, with a little forethought, you’ll quickly be able to keyword all the important events in this album named Holiday in Australia so that, months or years later, you can search for Australia, surfing, or cocktails, for example, and Elements will locate those images almost instantly. Searching in practice: In the Search field the blue magnifying glass icon, top right-hand side of the Organizer screen , type in a location and maybe an event using whatever keywords are appropriate such as Surfing or Australia , and the Organizer will find those images within seconds.

It’s fast because it only has to sort through its database which is essentially a text record ; not through gigabytes of high-resolution RAW files. Personalizing Tags: In this screenshot, I right-clicked my Surfing keyword t ag in the right-hand bin and chose Edit from the contextual menu. This brings up the Edit Keyword Tag window above, on the left.

You can edit the name of the tag and add comments. Clicking the Edit Icon tab brings up another, larger window, into which you can load a surfing picture to make that group instantly recognizable. PE 9 overall.

Although I think the software is great and very useful, basically easy to use, it has one main problem! The background and menus are hard to read, the black text on dark grey is not legible, the sliders are especially difficult to discern if they are moved.

I think smaller laptops with less vivid screen backlight might have more problems. Why did Adobe change this? Earlier versions were so clear to read. The product is still the best there is but what use is it if it can’t be read easily on all types of computers Pros: Easy to load somewhat inexpensive ease of use lots of functions Cons: Poor readibility black text on gray background More.

I have used Elements 5 6 8 9 and have found miner faults in all of them but Elements 9 has some serious flaws.

Pros: screen clear and easy for those of us with aging sight. Mostly easy to use and except for the points above I love it and use it every day. Cons: as in review More. Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. EVen thoe its not real its stil very good for jobs such as news paper graphic designers and ect. Pros: its all like photo shop but less confusion Cons: Its NOT a real copy of photo shop you masawel just get the real adobe version of it More. Laws concerning the use of this software vary from country to country.

We do not encourage or condone the use of this program if it is in violation of these laws. Softonic may receive a referral fee if you click or buy any of the products featured here. What do you think about Adobe Photoshop Elements? Do you recommend it? You need your Photoshop Elements serial number to use the full version of the product. Need help finding your serial number? Sign in to My Adobe to find serial numbers for registered products. Or, see Find the serial number for your Elements product.

If you don’t have the serial number, you can install the product and try it for a limited trial duration.

Make sure that your system meets the requirements for Photoshop Elements products. Having trouble? Get help from our community experts. How long does it take for download? See Estimated download times.