Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

Hi Folks,
I was just wondering if anybody has upgraded to Elements 11 yet, and what your thoughts on the new UI are. I installed the trial last night and personally, so far I prefer the look and feel of PSE10 alot better. And while I haven't had a chance to really check out the new features yet, I do like that when you go from Guided or Quick edit to Expert, you get all of your layers laid out for you. However, I'm not sure if the changes really warrant an upgrade. Your thoughts?

MtnMan Loc: ID

Unfortunately a few hours before 11 was announced I put in my order for CS6 so I won't be upgrading PSE for now. But had I not done that I'd have upgraded in a heartbeat.

I think the PSE 10 user interface sucks. Although I got to where I can do a lot of good stuff with it doing so required far too much effort. Plus I still have to hunt around for things I know are somewhere but because of the crappy organization I can't recall where in heck it was.

Adobe appears to have gone a long way towards clearing up that mess with 11. You may have to use it a while to really appreciate that.

It also includes some signficantly enhanced tools.

I will add that at this point, one day into CS6, I feel robbed. I feel that I was as well off for what I intend with PSE 10 and would have been better served spending far less money on PSE 11, even though I bought CS6 now because I could get the student discount.

Maybe a little more experience with it will change that view for me, too. My Kelby Photoshop book is supposed to arrive tomorrow. It was the PSE 10 book he did with Kloskowski that rescued me from three months of frustration with PSE 10. They made me a happy camper in three days. Maybe he can do the same with CS6.

Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

I should have stated from the beginning that this is my first go-around with digital photo editing (I got into photrography as a kid, spending countless hours hanging out in the darkroom with my father, years before digital came out.) Having said that, you are most likely right and I just don't know it. I'm using it mainly for minor exposure and color corrections right now. As I get into it more I expect that I'll be looking for an easier, more intuitive interface.

Functionality aside, I do like the smaller buttons and darker grey of PSE 10 better, but that's just me. I think I'll play with them both side by side for a while, then decide which one I suits my needs best as I learn to do more with it.

Leicaflex Loc: Cymru

My own personal experience if you have PSE10 it is not worth upgrading to PSE11, but wait for PSE12.
Regards.

bkyser Loc: Fly over country in Indiana

I usually try to upgrade my elements software every other upgrade. Seems that one level to the next is baby steps. 2 baby steps = one step up.

I got CS-5, and will probably wait several years before upgrading that. So much can be done with Elements, I too, feel that I should have saved the difference, and bought more (better) glass.

MtnMan Loc: ID

I saw you can change the colors of PSE 11 if you want. It was on one of the videos.

Lightroom 4.1 is another option. After about a year of hearing how wonderful it is with no specifics I finally caved in and bought it also a couple of weeks ago. A main driver for me right now is that I get the educational discount for another few months. I paid $50 for it but saw it on Amazon for $35. I don't know if there is a scam involved there.

I am learning to really like it. I do have my Kelby book for it and a DVD came with it so those helped. My primary interest in it was because it allows you to synchronize changes you make to a bunch of images. I know you can do that with Actions in Photoshop but haven't learned it yet. It is really easy in Lightroom. PSE is very limited in that regard.

But what I found was Lightroom is the ultimate solution if you want to shoot in RAW. You set presets to adjust the RAW images as Lightroom takes them aboard so what you see immediately looks like the jpegs you get on your camera. This lets you adjust white balance and keeps the cameras full bit level (14 for Nikon) for all images. I followed Kelby's advice and have it convert the RAW images to DNGs on import...but that step is invisible.

Lightroom does 90% of what you seem to want to do much simpler with sliders that allow you to see exactly what is happening. The clarity slider is awesome. PSE 10 has one in ACR 6.something but it isn't as cool as the one in Lightroom. Photoshop CS6 has ACR 7.1 in it which I believe has the same slider. Mabye PSE 11 includes ACR 7.1...something to check.

Lightroom also interfaces seamlessly with PSE or Photoshop...and is smart enough to check which is on your computer so you don't need to do anything.

The redundancy in Adobe programs amazes me.