Software : Photoshop Elements 6 (PC)

Rating: - Nice Editor, but Organizer is flawed
After using Elements 6 for 5 months now, I can honestly say that I've given it an extended road test.

On the whole, I'm pleased with it but there is one major problem that makes the Organizer part of the software all but useless to me. Basically, importing RAW images (in my case from a Canon DSLR) when installed on a multi-core processor (e.g. Core Duo) will result in broken image icons being displayed for many images. Much searching of user forums has revealed that this is a known bug for which there is still no fix.

If you do not intend to use the Organizer or if you are using an older machine, then I can recommend the ease of use of the Editor component, including for RAW images. But, if you are looking for an integrated, simple-but-powerful photo management program, I suggest looking elsewhere for now.

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Rating: - Ricky on ps 6!
This digital imaging suite is fantastic, and very well thought out. It does justice to the pics i take on my olympus camera.I purchased the book "classroom in a book" also by adobe which is very clearly presented.It costs a fraction of photoshop cs3 but does most of what it can do.
All in all a bargain!!

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Rating: - Great package and a try before buy is available
While good to get you going, the photo and video packages often bundled with PCs etc really don't give you anything advanced and easy to use (I mean the budget editions that usually cost about £25 to buy separately).

So after deciding that I no way need the mega-functionality of professional packages (even if I could afford splashing out several hundred pounds!) I looked into reviews from a number of different sources on a couple of mid-range packages but the only way to really know is to try one out first before buying.

Adobe have a try-before-buy scheme for stuff like this on their website (the Pro versions and the Elements versions of PhotoShop and Premier are available) although the file downloads are naturally very big. It was after trying these that made me buy the Premier Elements 4.0 and Photoshop 6.0 bundle.

I spent pretty much a whole weekend with the trial version (which is fully featured with a 30day timeout) editing holiday photos and video clips trying out various features - they're really quite intuitive to use and (so far) I haven't had any of the crashes that others have experienced so for me it gets a thumbs up.

Surprisingly, ordering from Amazon was a couple of pounds cheaper than buying the unlock codes direct from Adobe and also gets you the installation DVD and manuals. Note though that you have to uninstall the downloaded time-limited version and then reinstall from the disk as the licence codes with the disk won't unlock the downloaded time-limited version.

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Rating: - Photoshop Elements 6
I had my doubts about up grading from Elements 5 to Elements 6 , I have now done so and I have no regrets. Ifind the new software easier to ue and the new clone overlay tool is an easy way to clone acurately. I have also signed for the Photoshop newsletter, which so far has been an invaluable learning resource.

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Rating: - A great version of photoshop!
I have used photoshop for the past 5 years at work - although only for lightweight photo manipulation. Everything that I used to do, I can still to on this version.
I'm no graphic designer, and so I really wanted to make sure this version had the following, which is all I really did anyway:
1) Still has the select tool, and the ability to use layers
2) Still has the adjust - which has more user-friendly settings
3) Can still change image size, and "quality" of jpeg

Also, you can download a 30 day trial at the adobe site - which is useful too! On the whole, a relief to be able to do what I wanted to do, at around 10% of the price!