Other Sites
However, one thing that I find particularly annoying in Elements 6 is that when the application is open, the Desktop is pretty much obscured behind a wall of charcoal gray, whether any image documents are open or not. This screenshot from a Spaces thumbnail illustrates what I mean.
I suppose this grey screen has some purpose, but I haven't a clue as to what, and it's a pain to deal with, unless there is some way I haven't yet discovered to dismiss it. If anyone can enlighten me, please do.
[UPDATE: a reader who works in a news bureau kindly wrote to tell me that the purpose of the gray screen is to provide a neutral, non-distracting background when editing images, which makes perfectly logical sense, at least in a professional environment, if not for my purposes. I've also been informed by a contact at Adobe's PR agency that there is a way to disable the grey background, but as yet I haven't been successful in determining how to do it. Stay tuned. I hope to get to the bottom of this yet. CM]
[UPDATE 2 The confusion has been cleared up. It turns out that the pre-release beta copy of PSE 6 I'm using does not have a selection in its Preferences to disable the grey wall effect, which is properly referred to as "Workspace Background", but the final version will. Here are the respective General Preferences windows. CM]
When I'm editing batches of images I like to dump them on the Desktop or an open folder window and drag the images to the Photoshop Elements Dock icon to open them, but this is rendered maddeningly inconvenient by the "grey wall" effect, making it necessary to first click the Finder icon in the Dock to hide Photoshop Elements and then select and drag the image icon to its icon. With PSE 4 and earlier, you could just position your images where you could see them on the Desktop behind the PSE windows and palettes and drag them in directly without exiting the program.
New In Elements 6 for Macintosh
• Streamlined interface
• Guided editing
• New and enhanced compositing
- Photomerge Group Shot
- Photomerge Faces
- Photomerge Panorama
• Quick Selection Tool
• Color Curves Adjustment
• Batch RAW editing
• Support for RAW formats from newer digital cameras
• Black & White Conversions
• Lens Distortion Correction
• Flexible layouts for scrapbook pages, photo books, greeting cards, CD/DVD labels
• Backgrounds, frames, clip art & effects
System requirements:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh will run on Leopard, (Mac OS X v 10.5), as well as previous versions of Mac OS X starting with 10.4.8
• PowerPC G4 or G5 or multicore Intel processor
• Mac OS X v.10.4.8 - 10.5
• 512MB of RAM (1 GB recommended)
• 64MB of video RAM
• 1 GB of available hard-disk space (additional free space required during installation)
• 1,024x768 minimum display resolution with 16-bit video card
• DVD-ROM drive
• QuickTime 7 software required for multimedia features
• Internet connection required for internet-based services
PSE6 is now available for pre-order at:
http://www.adobe.com/go/buyphotoshop_elements_mac
Estimated street price is US$89.99, which I consider one of the biggest bargains in the commercial software market, considering that PSE continues to pack in most of the power and features of the professional standard Photoshop CS that I would ever use a small fraction of the full-featured Photoshop's price.
For more information, visit:
http://www.adobe.com
Charles W. Moore
Tags: Blogs ď Commentary ď Hot Topics ď
I look forward to getting PSE 6 after I buy my new Mac Mini in May. I heavily use just a few features which help me create graphics much easier and with many more possibilities than I can with Gimp, but having to wait so long for a native version has really tested my patience.