Photoshop & Premiere Elements 9

All articles on this site are by Harry Skevington unless otherwise noted with another byline

Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9
A lifetime favorite updated

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I cannot count how many years I have been using Adobe Photoshop. I have Photoshop 7 on the Lenovo R400 ThinkPad and had Version 6 on my desktop until I recently installed Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9 for these tests. I can say it has been a very long relationship. I have tried many other Photo and Video software programs. Some of those are now history. Others are still out there. I have faith that Adobe products will be around for many years. You can buy both Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9 in a package deal for $149.99 compared to the $99.99 retail cost for each if purchased separately. This is a savings of about fifty bucks. You many even find deeper discounts during the Christmas season.

I will cover both Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Adobe Premiere Elements 9 as they do interrelate when installed on the same system.

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The installation of both programs was simple. Once I had the registration straight and opened Photoshop it started to gather a ton of user information. It continued to search when I moved to the Learn More area. This went on for about 45 minutes. My assumption is that it was collecting all the photos on the computer. When I went to the ORGANIZER TAB it was building a screen filled with all my photos that are stored in this system. The photos are divided by “album” Each album is the equivalent of a folder full of photos. This includes scanned documents and other JPGs that, in fact, are not of value to me when working in Photoshop. The search included the previous six months or about 1300 items. All my videos where included as well. Videos can be played to check content. The videos were included as I have Premiere Elements 9 installed as well as Photoshop Elements 9.

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Photoshop.com
Adobe provides a Photoshop.com account that gives you 2GB of free storage on line. I was able to test the 20 GB size account (annual cost is $49.99 per year). The Photoshop.com application automatically searches for any new photos and stores them on its server. It is helpful as a secondary storage location but I have way too many photos and videos. Since I need more than 20GB of storage due to my camera testing I use Flickr as my major storage account. Flickr has an annual fee of $24.95 Photoshop.com and Flickr have different capabilities. It can be helpful to invest in both products. The Photoshop.com account is very good for getting started with either Photoshop and/or Premiere. You can allow friends to access Photoshop.com by sending an e-mail with a web link to your Gallery. You decide which albums can be shared by checking them as public. You can also share the Gallery on FaceBook or Twitter. I suggest you start with the free account 2BG to see how it goes. Move up to the 20GB account when you fill the 2BGs up and then see if that will be sufficient for your needs.

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Adobe has always provided many very helpful Tutorials with tips, tricks and very easy lessons on how to do amazing things with their products. Premiere Elements 9 and Photo Shop 9 are no exception to that plan. I was very happy to use these when attempting to work with the many new features of these products.

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I am not an artist or an ad designer. I work with the basics as most people do. When it came to testing the following new capabilities in these two Adobe products I went to the help files and learned step by step. I kept the lessons open while working so I could check back when I got lost. Here are just a few:

1. Instantly de-clutter or repair photos with the enhanced Spot Healing Brush.
2. Create stunning photo effects with new Guided Edits.
3. Create richly layered photos with Layer Masks.
4. Easily match a favorite photo style with Adobe Photomerge® Style Match.
5. Create fuller panoramas with Photomerge Panorama.
6. Quickly share photos and videos on Facebook.
7. Create the way you want with Basic and Advanced design modes.
8. Access every photo-editing option from within your creation layouts.
9. Show off your creativity with flexible layouts.

Since I use these functions occasionally I have to go back to the lessons again to refresh my memory.

I use Photoshop mostly to fix or change photos for the reviews4you.com site. This includes changing in size, cleaning up cropped areas, making slideshows to add multiple photos without taking up much space, and generally smoothing out my camera work. When working on a review of a camera on a phone or fa point and shoot I do not attempt to fix my work but do the other functions. It is necessary for the reader to see the actual results not what I think they should look like.

I created a short instant movie in a reasonable time using Premiere Elements 9. I collected 17 short clips and setup instant movie. The clips were created with audio so I left out the add music option. Premiere Elements 9 analyzed all 17 clips and rendered 4286 movie frames in 11 min 17 sec. Movie length after rendering about 9 minutes. Is it perfect? No. Is it simple? Yes. Will I do it again? Of course!

Using Adobe Premiere Elements 9 I connected another group of Clips and, using the Cartoon rendering function, Premiere Elements came up with a fun video where everyone looks like a cartoon character. POSTED ON FLICKR

Now that we have two very young grandkids I have added needs, such as changing photos and videos to make the family laugh and make me appear to almost know what I am doing. Photoshop Elements 9 has made that easier than in the past. Adobe Premiere Elements 9 has expanded my fun side capability.

To see more on these and other Adobe products CLICK HERE


	Harry Skevington has been involved with electronics since 1981. He has taught, written for, and provided support to, computer users since 1985. Information that will help consumers with buying decisions is more important than ever due to the current convergence of computers and other consumer products . Harry attends CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas on assignment as a working press writer each year to find and write about emerging technology that seems to fit the needs of his readers. Contact Harry

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