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Review! Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements Review

We hated our purchased version of Adobe Elements 8, our trial of version 9 and our opinion has not changed with our try out of version 10.  Hence, this review of Adobe Elements has not changed - we won't take time to write a review of our trial of Elements 10 - we don't like it

Please see our review of Corel Video Studio X5 aka as Video Studio 15 for a much better video editor

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Review! Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere Elements 8 Review

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere Elements 8 are consumer oriented subsets of Adobe's professional, powerful and expensive Photoshop CS and Premiere CS image and video editing software

Best Buy Return Policy Review 
We've just became aware that a government ID is now required for ALL Best Buy returns and the ID is RECORDED by Best Buy
read our review - we appologize but hate it so much we posted this interrupt on many of our pages

We are not professional reviewers and we are not selling anything here.  We actually bought and use this software (in this case we bought Adobe Elements 8 but we don't use it - preferring CorelDraw suite and Corel Video Studio Pro )

Our overall review opinion:  A Poor Product - we feel ripped off 1) because getting it to work on our PC's was a pain (and still unfixed) and 2) Premium 'membership' at $50 is required to get most templates and tutorials  

We completely prefer Corel Video Studio Pro 12 and Corel Video Studio Pro X3 for our consumer level video editing.  See our Review for VideoStudio Pro X3 Here  Trial version available and a 30 day money back guarantee.

Things we like about Adobe Photoshop Elements 8:

  • It's a powerful subset of Adobe PhotoShop CS
  • It supports graphics industry standard Adobe file formats
  • Photoshop Elements 8 is stable and can do the job

Things we like about Adobe Premiere Elements 8:

  • It's a powerful subset of Adobe Premiere CS
  • It can output .swf file formats (Adobe shockwave)

Things we DO NOT like about Adobe, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and or Adobe Premiere Elements version 8:

  • Registration is required to get any tutorials
  • MOST Adobe Elements 8 tutorials and templates ARE NOT available when you buy this software - see next point
  • Adobe does not include a full set of (most) templates and (most) tutorials in the suite - A 'premium' membership is required, at $50 a year, to get these options
  • Adobe does not make the above clear on its web site or on the product packaging
  • This amounts to bait and switch at best and fraud at worst.  Buying the software is the meal ticket for Adobe to get you to buy Adobe's services.
  • The Adobe Elements 8 User interface is not intuitive.
  • Installation our Elements Version 8 was problematic for us and for thousands of users as indicated on web blogs (Especially for machines with Nvida graphics cards).  Work-arounds and eventual resolution information was months in coming from Adobe
  • The initial recommended patch was not automatic but required manual manipulation of files
  • Adobe's support both on website and by email and phone is difficult, limited and generally unhelpful.
  • Adobe's corporate attitude assumes that we want to have to connect to their web serves to do everything
  • Performance is not what might be expected on a modern machine with Windows 7, a Quad Core Processor and 6 gig of ram and a 1 gig Radeon Video card - the software is as problematic on Winows 7 as it was on Windows Vista review.
  • Adobe Elements 8 adds services to your computer that run in the background. They have a very very heavy overhead on your computer's performance.  These services and indexing  'call home' over your internet connection and have a severe network performance impactpact
  • We've stopped Adobe Element's network activity, it helped a little, but the performance is still disappointing

Our review opinion: Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 is more stable than Adobe Premiere Elements 8.  Photoshop Elements works ok but the performance and 'optional' fees make these products  a rip-off

Corel Offers a 30 day money back guarantee on Video Studio Pro X3.  I kept my Corel software.  If Adobe had the same 30 day money back offer on Elements 8, we would get a refund.

Adobe has a trial version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and a trial version of Adobe Premeire Elements 8.  If this review and opinion has not dissuaded you, please do the trial version first.  If the download is problematic - do not install the trial - it is likely that your machine will not be compatible

Adobe has released this (apparently) very poorly tested version of Adobe Elements Premiere 8 - its flagship consumer video editing software.  Worse, support and updates have been very very slow in coming. The product was released in September 2009 and the 1st patch did not come until February 2010.  The updates did not fully resolve all of the instability

Our opinion is that this product should be recalled or replaced free when Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Adobe Premiere Elements 9 is released (and reviewed here)

Is there a lawyer out there that would sue for the bait and switch tactics used by Adobe? Forget buying this software! We hate that Adobe Elements has a subscription fee required to get most tutorials and templates.

Finally, our opinion of Adobe Elements 8 is extremely negative.  The product and Adobe's support and slow fix has damaged our opinion of Adobe in general and of Adobe's professional products.  Although our clients are only small businesses we now point them away from Adobe whenever possible.  And toward Microsoft's competing professional products (Microsoft Expression and Silverlight) and toward Corel's competing consumer and professional products. (Corel PaintShop Pro and CorelDraw Graphics Suite)

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 and Adobe Premiere Elements 10 Review

Highlights:

- Supports Adobe's Industry Standard file formats

- Difficult Installation for Some PC's

- Performance that leaves much to be desired.  Decreases system and internet performance substantially

- Bait and Switch - more templates and more tutorials require premium $50 annual subscription

- Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere Elements 8 should be replaced free with Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Adobe Premiere Elements 9 when the new version is released.

- We prefer Corel's Video Studio Pro

- This  Adobe Elements 8 review is our opinion