Adobe Photoshop Elements 7

A new version of Elements always causes a stir, but will the new features in Adobe Elements 7 make it worthy of a purchase or an upgrade for existing users?

New Features
Elements 6 offered users some useful additional extras like the Quick Selection tool and the Guided Editing mode and Adobe has enhanced both these areas in Elements 7.
First there’s an all-new Smart Brush in the Toolbox, which combines the features of the Quick Selection tool and Adjustment Layers. This allows you to brush over and select an area of your image, and apply specific effects such as darkening or brightening with just one or two brush strokes. This effect is controlled like an Adjustment Layer with a corresponding Mask, so there’s a lot of flexibility in how it’s applied. Alongside this is the Detail Smart Brush – a more freehand option that adds your chosen effect just as though you were brushing it in. It’s the more intuitive of the two and could be of great use for quick, sweeping adjustments. Both of these tools leave a small icon on the image allowing you to double-click there and access the Adjustment layer, just as you would in the Layers palette. This is a neat feature, but could get a bit confusing if you’re making lots of adjustments.
Adobe has also added two new modes and seven new options in the Guided Editing area. For the first time in Elements you can apply Actions to your images with the in-built Actions player that’s found beneath the Automated Actions mode. There are four Action Sets – Captions, Lose Weight, Resize & Crop and Special Effects – each of which include up to nine individual Actions, but unfortunately there’s no function to record new Actions like in Photoshop.
Other new options in the Guided Edit area include adjusting Levels, fixing keystone distortion and an impressive Scene Cleaner in the Photomerge mode. The latter requires that you load in two images of the same scene and then remove any obstructions in your shot –like people straying in front of the lens – by sampling the same area from the source image and removing it seamlessly. All you have to do is draw a line through the obstruction.
The Quick Edit mode has four new tools tucked under the Touch Up menu and these include a Red Eye Removal tool, a Whiten Teeth tool, a Make Dull Skies Blue tool and a Black And White – High Contrast tool. Like the Smart Brushes, these tools can be used to speed up your imaging workflow for the simplest tasks.
Elsewhere in Elements 7 you’ll find a new Surface Blur filter that was previously only in Photoshop, and a useful text-searching tool that’s found in the Organizer. There are no additions to the Camera Raw interface, which is identical to Elements 5 & 6.

Interface & Performance
The dark grey interface and workspace of Elements 7 is identical in appearance to that
of Elements 6, meaning existing Elements users can upgrade without any navigational problems. However, you’re now given the ability to control the brightness in the Preferences with a User Interface Brightness slider.
Elements 7 took under 10mins to install on our PC running with Windows XP, an Intel Core Duo 1.66Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM. Images loaded up very fast, a large 200MB file taking a mere 10secs. Overall, the fast performance speed of Elements 7 will mean your workflow is never interrupted by sluggish performance – we had no problems, even though our laptop’s speed was a little under Adobe’s stated requirement.

Verdict
The majority of new features in Elements 7 are found in the Guided and Quick Edit modes – great news for beginners or first-timers who like to apply complex adjustments quickly while they get to grips with what’s possible when editing images. Tools like the Action Player and Scene Cleaner are great to have but with the former, you’re rather limited by the amount of Action Sets. Meanwhile, the Scene Cleaner is excellent but it’s hardly a feature that’s going to get constant use.
The Smart Brushes are more of a day-in-day-out tool and a welcome addition to the Toolbox. They’re likely to prove popular with users who want to apply a range of effects in specific areas with a good level of control and the Refine Edge box in the Options bar means you can blend adjustments in perfectly with any surrounding, unselected pixels.
If you’re currently running a version of Elements 5 or 6 we’d have to say there aren’t enough new features to justify an upgrade – you’d be better off saving your cash or putting it towards a full version of Photoshop.
However if you have a version earlier than Elements 5, the upgrade is much more appealing – the new features of the RAW converter being worth the outlay alone. If you’re yet to purchase an editing program and are currently weighting up your options, Elements 7 is the top choice and although it can’t match the heavyweight features of the full Photoshop, it does includes all the fundamental tools required to carry out the most common imaging tasks – and all for just £76. A great value package.

AT A GLANCE
Full Price: £76.38
Upgrade price: £64.62 (from any version of Elements)
Minimum Recommended Spec (Windows)
Operating system: XP with SP2 or SP3 or Vista
Processor: 2GHz or faster
Memory: 1GB of RAM
Hard disk: 1.5GB available space
Screen: Colour monitor with 16-bit color video card

A Mac version of Elements 7 is due to be released in early 2009.

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