Adobe Elements 2019

My son and I share my two adobe Creative Cloud licences that I get from my account with them. I was also previously using a very old version of Photoshop (PS4) on my computer which has now failed completely. Rather than pay more for another account to get CC I was thinking of buying the latest version of Elements to run on my replacement laptop.

Has anyone any experience of elements who can tell me what they actually get with the programme? Also apart from Elements 2019 as a stand a lone programme, also available is additional premier elements Elements 2019 which can be bought as a combined set. Is there any advantage of buying both or would Elelments 2019 on it's own suffice.

I plan to use the laptop when I am away from home, but any serious work would be transfered to the desk top computer to be finalised. I do not want it for sharing grouping or anything else, merely for basic RAW conversion and then simple work such as lightning, resizing and so forth. I have tried to read and understand various 'professional' revues but not having ever owned a copy I am sometimes struggling to understand what they are talking about.

A clear personal view of experience with Elements, either this version or the 2018 version would be appreciated.

Thanks to any who reply.

I'm not sure if this is a particularly helpful reply, but have you tried any of the non Adobe products like Photoline or Paint Shop Pro etc?

www.pl32.com - software I use

https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/products/paintshop-pro/ultimate/ - apparently works with raw image files.

BMbikerider said:

My son and I share my two adobe Creative Cloud licences that I get from my account with them. I was also previously using a very old version of Photoshop (PS4) on my computer which has now failed completely. Rather than pay more for another account to get CC I was thinking of buying the latest version of Elements to run on my replacement laptop.

Has anyone any experience of elements who can tell me what they actually get with the programme? Also apart from Elements 2019 as a stand a lone programme, also available is additional premier elements Elements 2019 which can be bought as a combined set. Is there any advantage of buying both or would Elelments 2019 on it's own suffice.

I plan to use the laptop when I am away from home, but any serious work would be transfered to the desk top computer to be finalised. I do not want it for sharing grouping or anything else, merely for basic RAW conversion and then simple work such as lightning, resizing and so forth. I have tried to read and understand various 'professional' revues but not having ever owned a copy I am sometimes struggling to understand what they are talking about.

A clear personal view of experience with Elements, either this version or the 2018 version would be appreciated.

Thanks to any who reply.

Click to expand...

rather than usingPhotoshop Elements, you may be better off with a just Photoshop license or give Affinity Photo a try

BMbikerider said:

I plan to use the laptop when I am away from home, but any serious work would be transfered to the desk top computer to be finalised. I do not want it for sharing grouping or anything else, merely for basic RAW conversion and then simple work such as lightning, resizing and so forth. I have tried to read and understand various 'professional' revues but not having ever owned a copy I am sometimes struggling to understand what they are talking about.

A clear personal view of experience with Elements, either this version or the 2018 version would be appreciated.

Thanks to any who reply.

Click to expand...

Bikerider, I occasionally use an older Elements to import RAW files. It is confusing how it works.

1. If you only use jpeg or another 8-bit format for all your work, Adobe Elements will let you make all sorts of adjustments and effects. Think of it as an inexpensive Photoshop for casual users.
2. If you work with 16-bit files, such as most RAW files, then you can import these RAW files, make color corrections, rotate, crop, and perform a very few other adjustments. And these actions will retain the 16-bit format. But then if you want to make other adjustments, the program will make you convert to 8-bit.

In summary, I find Elements to be very limiting and have not bothered to upgrade. I second the suggestions about trying Affinity or some other programs. You can try to buy a recent Photoshop stand-along program, but they are staggeringly expensive, and I have read that many of the eBay vendors are untrustworthy (meaning, the license code will not work).

BMbikerider said:

..., also available is additional premier elements Elements 2019 which can be bought as a combined set. Is there any advantage of buying both or would Elelments 2019 on it's own suffice...

Click to expand...

Premier Elements is for video.

The last time I used Elements was version 10 for the Mac. As the Mac OS software was upgraded over the years, my older version of Elements got buggy, and I ended up switching to the Adobe subscription route which got me Lightroom and Photoshop. And which is easy to keep up-to-date.

Two observations about Elements (which may now be out of date):

1. At first I thought Elements was a kind of "Photoshop Lite" - a dumbed down version for amateurs. After using Elements for a year or two, I came to appreciate it as being better than Photoshop in many ways IF your main interest is in polishing photographs. There was never anything I wanted to do to an image which I could not do in Elements. I found it to be a very powerful tool for the photographer who does not need the advanced capabilities for dealing with type, composite images and commercial printing. To me, Elements seemed to be more focused on the needs of Photographers - while Photoshop was more of a Swiss Army knife for graphic artists.

2. As I recall, I was surprised (disappointed) to discover how different the Elements interface was, compared to the version of Photoshop I had been using (I believe that was PS v7 for Mac). Elements had much the same capabilities as Photoshop, but everything looked different, worked different, and was named different. Coming from Photoshop, it was a struggle for me to figure out the new (to me) Elements interface and find all the tools. The two programs may be more similar now than they were back then, but if not, it's possible you will find the switch from the Photoshop interface to the Elements interface to come with a significant learning curve.

As previously mentioned, don't pay extra for Premier Elements unless you are editing video.

I have no interest in video so thanks for that suggestion that I ignore the Premier version.

Tom Kershaw said:

I'm not sure if this is a particularly helpful reply, but have you tried any of the non Adobe products like Photoline or Paint Shop Pro etc?

www.pl32.com - software I use. https://www.paintshoppro.com/en/products/paintshop-pro/ultimate/ - apparently works with raw image files.

Click to expand...

I also thought of Paint Shop Pro as well but I have always uses Adobe and am reasonably aware what does what and what I can get away with. I do believe that they have a UK contact number so I may give them a call on Monday. I have searched them on-line and at present until the end of next week they have a special offer with quite a substantial reduction on the standard cost.

BMbikerider said:

My son and I share my two adobe Creative Cloud licences that I get from my account with them. I was also previously using a very old version of Photoshop (PS4) on my computer which has now failed completely. Rather than pay more for another account to get CC I was thinking of buying the latest version of Elements to run on my replacement laptop.

Has anyone any experience of elements who can tell me what they actually get with the programme? Also apart from Elements 2019 as a stand a lone programme, also available is additional premier elements Elements 2019 which can be bought as a combined set. Is there any advantage of buying both or would Elelments 2019 on it's own suffice.

I plan to use the laptop when I am away from home, but any serious work would be transfered to the desk top computer to be finalised. I do not want it for sharing grouping or anything else, merely for basic RAW conversion and then simple work such as lightning, resizing and so forth. I have tried to read and understand various 'professional' revues but not having ever owned a copy I am sometimes struggling to understand what they are talking about.

A clear personal view of experience with Elements, either this version or the 2018 version would be appreciated.

Thanks to any who reply.

Click to expand...

I wonder if LR CC has to be on the same computer as PS CC. If not, you can split the LR onto your laptop and then use that on the road.

:Niranjan.

That's what I intend to do if I go ahead with Elements. I cannot download CC onto this laptop simply because Adobe will not accept I no longer have the original laptop because it is no longer working and unlikely to do so. Or as I said before, I may jump ship completely and go for PS Pro.

Pintshop Pro plus Atershot Pro is a very flexible Corel alternative to the Photoshop + Lightroom tandem.

BMbikerider said:

That's what I intend to do if I go ahead with Elements. I cannot download CC onto this laptop simply because Adobe will not accept I no longer have the original laptop because it is no longer working and unlikely to do so. Or as I said before, I may jump ship completely and go for PS Pro.

Click to expand...

So I did a little research since I myself might need this in at some point in the near future. You can download CC on multiple computers, but only 2 can be activated and only one can be used at a time.

https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/using/install-apps-number-of-computers.html

So when you wish to use the laptop, all you have to do is deactivate the home desktop and activate the laptop. Change it back when you want to use the desktop. Activate/Deactivate process does not look like a big deal to me.

https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/using/activate-deactivate-creative-cloud-apps.html

:Niranjan.

I had Photoshop CS5 on my last iMac, but got Elements 2018 on the new one. I also use On1 for most of my dslr stuff, but I haven't really missed PS. It really depends on what you want to do with it. It still has layers and can do all the levels adjustments. It has most of the filters, but not always in the same spots.

Elements is powerful and sophisticated if you have the patience to learn it, I find the GUI clunky and unfriendly (v12)

If you are familiar with the PS GUI then there would be a learning curve with Elements due to different layouts and icons, this would encourage me to stick with PS.

I have Affinity and it also is powerful and sophisticated however everything is named differently to PS and Elements.

In my limited experience with Elements 12 RAW facilities are limited to opening one image at a time and this locks out the rest of Elements.

I use Canon and the capabilities of the (free) Canon RAW editor DPP4 are more user friendly and sophisticated I find, the same might be true for the OEM RAW editor for your camera.

Kodachromeguy said:

Bikerider, I occasionally use an older Elements to import RAW files. It is confusing how it works.

1. If you only use jpeg or another 8-bit format for all your work, Adobe Elements will let you make all sorts of adjustments and effects. Think of it as an inexpensive Photoshop for casual users.
2. If you work with 16-bit files, such as most RAW files, then you can import these RAW files, make color corrections, rotate, crop, and perform a very few other adjustments. And these actions will retain the 16-bit format. But then if you want to make other adjustments, the program will make you convert to 8-bit.

In summary, I find Elements to be very limiting and have not bothered to upgrade. I second the suggestions about trying Affinity or some other programs. You can try to buy a recent Photoshop stand-along program, but they are staggeringly expensive, and I have read that many of the eBay vendors are untrustworthy (meaning, the license code will not work).

Click to expand...

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