Digital Camera World - UK (2022-02)

Kit

Zone

hotoshop is, of course, the

world’s most famous photo

editor. While it was once

an expensive professional

purchase, it’s now part of the Adobe

Photography Plan, offering Photoshop,

Lightroom and Lightroom Classic (and

extras) for £120/$120 per year.

Photoshop is solely an in-depth

professional image-editing tool. It has

no image cataloguing features and no

library of preset effects. It does not

support non-destructive editing in the

modern sense, though you can build

Adjustment Layers and Smart Objects

into your images to provide extensive

reworking opportunities.

You would probably not use

Photoshop on its own. It relies on the

help of programs like Bridge (included)

and Lightroom for image browsing

and organisation. The fact is that

as Lightroom grows in power and

sophistication, photographers

may find they need Photoshop,

and programs like it, less and less.

hotoshop Elements is

Adobe’s novice-orientated

version of Photoshop.

You can buy Photoshop

Elements on its own, or as a bundle

with Premiere Elements for video

editing. Either way, it also comes with

a separate Organizer app. This fills the

same organisation role as Lightroom

in the Adobe Photography Plan, but is

a much more novice-orientated tool.

Photoshop Elements tries hard to

make things simple for novices by

offering easy quick fixes, a Guided

Edit mode that walks users through a

process so that they learn at the same

time, and an Expert mode, which offers

more hands-on control and functions.

Despite its colourful buttons and

walk-through processes, Elements

isn’t as user-friendly as it might be.

The multiple modes for editing your

photos introduce a lot of crossover and

decisions. The Guided Edits show how

common editing processes work, but

the results can often lack finesse.

P P

Adobe

Photoshop

£9.98/$9.99 per month

Still the best at what it does

http://www.adobe.com

Adobe Photoshop

Elements 2022

£86.56/$99.99

Lots for beginners to play with

http://www.adobe.com

Digital Camera verdict Digital Camera verdict

4.5 Outstanding 3.5 Ver y good

Features Ease Results Value Features Results Value

of use

Ease

of use

Still the world’s best

technical, in-depth

photo editor. Perhaps

it’s not needed now as

much as it once was,

though new features

like Sky Replacement

are impressive.

It’s fine for beginners,

but suffers from a

cloying interface and

limited tools. Worse, the

version of Camera Raw

supplied is substantially

less powerful and useful

than the ‘proper’ one.

112 DIGITAL CAMERA^ FEBRUARY 2022 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com

Group Test Photo-editing software

System requirements

Windows

Intel or AMD 2GHz or faster

processor with SSE 4.2 or

later; Windows 10 64-bit

(version 1909) or later; LTSC

versions are not supported

macOS

Intel 2GHz or faster

processor; macOS

10.15 Catalina or later

8GB RAM (16GB+

recommended);

4GB hard disk space

(16GB recommended)

System requirements

Windows

Intel 6th Generation or newer

processor, or AMD equivalent

with SSE 4.1 support;

Windows 10 64-bit (version

2004 or later, version 21H1

recommended)

macOS

Intel 6th Generation or

newer processor; macOS

10.15 Catalina or later

8GB RAM; 7.2GB hard disk

space (plus 3GB for optional

content)

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