
 |
|
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
March 31, 2006
/ 2 Nissan, 5766
Adobe's photo lab has right elements
By
Mark Kellner
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Right before my eyes, a stand of birch trees in Finland was transformed.
The colors were crisper, sharper even. The exposure seemed nearly perfect. And it was a scene that I could now look at again and again.
This metamorphosis wasn't the result of laser eye surgery or a newfound appreciation for birch trees. Rather, it was the result of a single mouse click in the latest version of Adobe Systems' Photoshop Elements, which at a list price of $89 is less than one-seventh the cost of the full Photoshop CS software aimed at professionals.
For most of us, Elements will do quite nicely, and its price puts the software in competition with Apple Computer's IPhoto on many levels.
Elements offers more tools than IPhoto, and some may claim there's a steeper learning curve. However, those extra features are worth the effort to learn if you want to take your home photography to the next level.
One of the nice features of Elements is its use of Adobe's "Bridge" photo organizer, which works rather like IPhoto to collect various picture files and allow you to browse to find the photos you want. You can search photos based on meta-data such as the use of flash, a specific f-stop or camera model, making it easier to find a range of photos in a sea of images.
These search "filters" can be stored for easy reuse.
There are some nice additional editing tools in the new product: a "Magic Selection Brush" lets you select various parts of a photo to edit or adjust, while the "Magic Extractor" can highlight a subject from a photo your dog, say and let it be used in other pictures.
The program also offers a tool to provide "the most realistic skin colors in moments," while a new straighten tool can correct tilted camera angles. These features are useful because, as veteran shutterbugs know, not every photo comes out perfectly straight or perfectly exposed.
Also new in this version and perhaps most important for dedicated users is support for basic "RAW" format use and for the universal "Digital Negative" format, or DNG, which promises access to photos for decades to come because they will not be stored in a proprietary format. These are important advances, I believe.
I very much like the "auto smart fix" button in the program, the one that took the Finnish birch stand and made it so much nicer. Purists may scoff and say you need to tweak every element of brightness, contrast, exposure, flash and so on, and you can do almost everything with Elements manually.
When in a hurry, or when processing batches of photos, however, the one-step procedure is quite handy.
Users will want to devote some time to learning the various features of Photoshop Elements 4. Use the wrong "magic extraction" tool there are ones for foreground and background items and you may end up frustrated, for example. This is a much more sophisticated program than IPhoto, good as the latter is for so many tasks, and it requires some study.
My final personal favorite remains the "Save for Web" feature, in which I can quickly, cleaning and reliably convert photos to a JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format that loads quickly from the Internet.
For sheer time saving, this feature alone is worth the program's price.
Details at http://www.adobe.com.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2006, News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|