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Advantages:
Fairly easy to use, and has all the features your likely to need for photo editing . Included tutorials . Technical Support .
Disadvantages:
It doesn't always work first time ! It isn't wildly fast unless you have a very powerful PC . Closing and saving files is a bit torturous .
My anticipation was high as I loaded the Adobe Photoshop Elements software. After all, all the reviews had been good, and previous Photoshop software worked like a dream.
However, my dreams came crashing down when I tried to run the edit option. I waited... and waited... but my system was stuck fast. The screen was frozen, and according to Task Manager, the software was not responding but was using up all my CPU!
I tried everything to fix the problem, including reloading Photoshop, removing anything remotely resembling 'photo software', reinstalling Norton, updating windows XP, resetting my screen refresh rate, and reducing my hardware graphics accelerator.
Then after a month of bemoaning this waste of money, I called Adobe.......
A very helpful tech support person, talked me through some checks, and then asked something very Bizarre.... "Was I running in English?" When I checked, I discovered that the default language on my PC had been set to Welsh. Apparently Photoshop doesn't like this (I don't think it's just Welsh though!). I changed it to English, and voila, it worked fine! You won't find this on their FAQ page, but if you have problems it's certainly worth a try. I can recommend their tech support - something I rarely do.
The software itself is very good with all the features you could possibly want. to clear up and manipulate your photos. I really like the red-eye option. The layers take a bit of getting used to, but once you do, it's fairly easy.
Overall, if you want the basics, it's pretty easy to use. If you want to get more sophisticated, it has many great features, although some are not as straightforward to use. But, if you're struggling, the included tutorials are very good.
And check your language!
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