Customer Rating: 
Summary: Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0
Comment: Elements 3.0 has several useful improvements over 2.
I'm glad I ordered it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Missing some important features...
Comment: I typically use Photoshop for coloring my drawings, and don't really use it for fixing up Photographs much. The features that were there in Elements 2 worked fine for both,
But this version removes the features that made Photoshop particularly valuable to me. I used a lot of stuff like layer glows and layer strokes, and color overlays. These features have been simplified, as well as taken apart. You can no longer choose what color your glow is, and any other complex trick you did to any layer effect, well you can't do that anymore.
Also, parts of the old features have been moved around, and instead of being one place that is easy to look for, they're all over the place.
Masks are more of a pain now being as I can't find them anywhere on the menu.
It apparently adds a lot of features for Photo editting and touchups. If that's what you need, then you're probably making the right choice with Elements 3. However, if you're just looking to color your drawings or anything that might involve spiffy custom glows, you are making the wrong choice in software.
It was the worst $40 I ever spent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Big step-up from 2.0
Comment: Just returned from a workshop at the Santa Fe Photo Workshop. Was amazed to learn how much more I can do with Elements 3.0 compared to 2.0. There was no difference in the class between the capabilities of my Elements 3.0 and the folks who were using Photoshop CS2; however, there were lots of things I would not have been able to do in 2.0. I am sure that for professional photographers, CS2 offers many advantages - but, as a "serious amateur", I am glad I didn't spring for the additional cost. I love the way you can move back and forth between the quick fix function and standard editing with just a click on buttons at the top of the screen. Having the adjustment sliders down the right side of the screen is very convenient - although that makes the photo workspace smaller. For the price, Elements 3.0 is top notch in my opinion.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing color-correction, but Windows users beware!
Comment: I feel like an idiot for buying this software. This is a Macintosh application that has been ported to Windows with predictably confusing results.
I was looking for an inexpensive alternative to the various photo editting tools I've acquired with different hardware peripherals. In the past I have relied on an old Adobe product that came with my HP scanner to do simple photo editting, but I was having trouble installing it on my Windows XP machine, and thought it was time to look for something more modern.
A large part of this product suite is a photo organizer that is not as easy to use as Picasa, a free product available from Google.
I have only begun to attempt to use the photo editting software on the JPEG files I have been scanning from slides. I must say that the "auto correction" operation, whatever it does exactly, seems really excellent. I am amazed at how well it corrects the color automatically: I have some slides I shot of the leaning tower of Pisa that were all overexposed, by (my) mistake, and are thus super-saturated with blue. Photoshop appears to be able to restore the greens as if by magic, and I give the product three stars for this feature alone.
As I try to learn to use the photo correction tools to remove some fingerprints from a few slides however I realize that the reason I am having so much trouble using the program is that it was clearly originally written for a Macintosh environment.
I have nothing against Macs per se, but as a Windows and Linux user I find the Macintosh user interface to be utterly baffling.
Some of the Mac influence in this product is obvious, like when the help says "if running on a Windows PC, do an Alt-click" (rather than use the PC's 2nd mouse button) but the most confusing discrepancies from a Windows environment are unfortunately more subtle and thus particularly confusing.
At least, I think that's why this product is so hard for me to use. Having spent my $85 I am determined to learn this product, but I wish some of the glowing reviews on Amazon that convinced me to buy it had warned me that it's (apparently) not a native Windows application.
I should also add that the performance of the Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows is not what I would expect for a modern application written for a state-of-the-art PC: nowadays PC applications do not typically stall when switching between different parts of an application while it loads a different set of plug-ins.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great piece of software.
Comment: I don't know of any other software where you can get this much for this price. It's useful for a lot more than just photo editing
Summary: Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0
Comment: Elements 3.0 has several useful improvements over 2.
I'm glad I ordered it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Missing some important features...
Comment: I typically use Photoshop for coloring my drawings, and don't really use it for fixing up Photographs much. The features that were there in Elements 2 worked fine for both,
But this version removes the features that made Photoshop particularly valuable to me. I used a lot of stuff like layer glows and layer strokes, and color overlays. These features have been simplified, as well as taken apart. You can no longer choose what color your glow is, and any other complex trick you did to any layer effect, well you can't do that anymore.
Also, parts of the old features have been moved around, and instead of being one place that is easy to look for, they're all over the place.
Masks are more of a pain now being as I can't find them anywhere on the menu.
It apparently adds a lot of features for Photo editting and touchups. If that's what you need, then you're probably making the right choice with Elements 3. However, if you're just looking to color your drawings or anything that might involve spiffy custom glows, you are making the wrong choice in software.
It was the worst $40 I ever spent.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Big step-up from 2.0
Comment: Just returned from a workshop at the Santa Fe Photo Workshop. Was amazed to learn how much more I can do with Elements 3.0 compared to 2.0. There was no difference in the class between the capabilities of my Elements 3.0 and the folks who were using Photoshop CS2; however, there were lots of things I would not have been able to do in 2.0. I am sure that for professional photographers, CS2 offers many advantages - but, as a "serious amateur", I am glad I didn't spring for the additional cost. I love the way you can move back and forth between the quick fix function and standard editing with just a click on buttons at the top of the screen. Having the adjustment sliders down the right side of the screen is very convenient - although that makes the photo workspace smaller. For the price, Elements 3.0 is top notch in my opinion.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing color-correction, but Windows users beware!
Comment: I feel like an idiot for buying this software. This is a Macintosh application that has been ported to Windows with predictably confusing results.
I was looking for an inexpensive alternative to the various photo editting tools I've acquired with different hardware peripherals. In the past I have relied on an old Adobe product that came with my HP scanner to do simple photo editting, but I was having trouble installing it on my Windows XP machine, and thought it was time to look for something more modern.
A large part of this product suite is a photo organizer that is not as easy to use as Picasa, a free product available from Google.
I have only begun to attempt to use the photo editting software on the JPEG files I have been scanning from slides. I must say that the "auto correction" operation, whatever it does exactly, seems really excellent. I am amazed at how well it corrects the color automatically: I have some slides I shot of the leaning tower of Pisa that were all overexposed, by (my) mistake, and are thus super-saturated with blue. Photoshop appears to be able to restore the greens as if by magic, and I give the product three stars for this feature alone.
As I try to learn to use the photo correction tools to remove some fingerprints from a few slides however I realize that the reason I am having so much trouble using the program is that it was clearly originally written for a Macintosh environment.
I have nothing against Macs per se, but as a Windows and Linux user I find the Macintosh user interface to be utterly baffling.
Some of the Mac influence in this product is obvious, like when the help says "if running on a Windows PC, do an Alt-click" (rather than use the PC's 2nd mouse button) but the most confusing discrepancies from a Windows environment are unfortunately more subtle and thus particularly confusing.
At least, I think that's why this product is so hard for me to use. Having spent my $85 I am determined to learn this product, but I wish some of the glowing reviews on Amazon that convinced me to buy it had warned me that it's (apparently) not a native Windows application.
I should also add that the performance of the Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows is not what I would expect for a modern application written for a state-of-the-art PC: nowadays PC applications do not typically stall when switching between different parts of an application while it loads a different set of plug-ins.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great piece of software.
Comment: I don't know of any other software where you can get this much for this price. It's useful for a lot more than just photo editing