Working with digital images

[Irish1932]

I have been using demo softwares but would like to settle down,am presently using demo elements 3. I can get new copies of elements 2 cheap and have Picassa

Is there any advantage with elements 3 other than the healing brush.Do I still get layers histogram levels,etc. with elements 2.Thanks for your insight
Bob.in Hamilton Canada :-/

[ShutterbugGail]

Hi Bob,

Welcome to the Q&A Board.

One of the other new features in Elements 3.0 is to bring details out of shadows. I hear it is very good. It also has a built-in red-eye fix and you can adjust white balance with filters if you didn't do so with your camera.

I think you main consideration when deciding is to determine how much image editing you do. For the difference in money, Elements 2 may be all you ever need. Picasa2 offers nice editing tools too, plus it is absolutey free. Elements3 adds some filter effects but for filter effects, I personally like PhotoFiltre and that, too is free. Here's some information about it.

http://www.digicamhelp.com/photofiltre/

Yes, elements2 has layers but I honestly don't recall if it has a histogram.

[Deb]

Hi there, Photoshop Elements 3 actually has quite a few new features over 2. For a detailed list, go to http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/indepth.html and click on "Photoshop Elements What's New" and "Photoshop Elements Feature Highlights". You still get layers, etc. with version 2 but you get a much more power RAW converter in 3 as well as Shadow/Highlights adjustments, etc. If I were to choose between the two, I'd opt for version 3. Of course, you can always run modifed Photoshop Actions in either version which is huge fun!