Elements 8

[Manxislander]

Keen photographer here, very amateur, being new to it all...I've downloaded Elements 8 on a free trial for a month before I buy...I can do a few things on it fine.....BUT......I'm a regular reader of Digital Camera magazine which comes with a cd tutorial and on following said tutorials I can get so far but things then go awry. I have on one occasion been able to follow tutorial to the end but on others things do not work. I've looked at min spec which is I think 1g ram....I've only got half of this....Could this be the problem? Should I upgrade or buy a new pc. Mine is four years old running XP.

[George]

When it comes to Adobe's products each new version seems to need more resources and Elements is no different.

You are right, RAM advised for this one is 1gb, according to this review.

You might consider increasing your 512mb instead of having to upgrade the computer. However, before you go ahead with one or the other give Enditall a try, still available for free use.

I used Enditall on my old computer, (512mb RAM), for Elements 5 without any problem. Enditall shuts down all unnecessary running services including your Anti Virus with one click, leaving enough RAM for Elements to work with. It still comes in handy when I dust off the old 'un and do some work to keep the machine running well.

When finished your editing restore those disabled services simply by restarting the computer.

[Manxislander]

Thanks George, I thought that would be the case. Looks like a new pc then sooner than later. I would have trouble upgrading because when I bought my pc, a Dell, it did have 1gig of memory but then I had a fault and the pc would only work without one of the memory chips in. In the meantime I will check out enditall....Cheers

[Jedi]

Do you really need Elements 8? I have elelments 6 on a XP five year old PC and it runs fine.

Elements 6 does more than what I would probably ever need, being like you a very keen photographer.

Saying that, I dont know what the difference between 6 and 8 is.

[salvador]

If all you want to do is to edit and enhance your photos, you certainly don't need all the features provided by Adobe's Elements 8 and you may find one of the free photo editors available will be sufficient for your needs, although most offer only basic editing facilities.

However, Serif's free PhotoPlus SE photo editor contains some advanced features such as layers, cloning, etc. and you might find this worth a trial before spending money on a more expensive photo editor such as Photo Shop. For another £10 or so you can obtain their more advanced PhotoPlus 9 program, which used to sell for more than £50.

It takes time to find your way around any decent photo editor and how to get the best out of it. Unless you've already had lots of experience in using a more advanced photo editor, the time allowed for most trials probably isn't long enough to make a proper assessment before deciding whether to purchase.

[Manxislander]

Jedi and Salvador, thank you both so much for your replies. Now that the free trial is finished on Elements 8 I think that you could both be right in thinking that maybe there is no need for me to buy something as expensive as I might not get the full use out of it. I will certainly have a look at Serif's free Photo Plus SE editor as it was in the area of layers that I was interested in. Anyway thank you both again for your replies. Much appreciated.

[Fusion]

Manx

If you do want to try PhotoPlus 9, download it from --&gt;&gt;<font color="red">HERE</font>&lt;&lt;-- for free.

You can register the product here --&gt;&gt;<font color="red">Product Registration</font>&lt;&lt;--

--&gt;&gt;<font color="red">Paint.NET</font>&lt;&lt;-- also takes some beating for a freebie.

[Doublell]

Manxislander

I have a sealed unused copy of Photoshop Elements 5.0 that came with the Canon scanner I bought. If you would like it PM your address etc and 'll send it to you. We photographers have to stick together.