Exercising my prerogative to change my mind…
A little bit ago I talked about how I was enjoying using Picasa. At the time (ok, so it was only about a month ago!) it seemed to be what I needed…nothing fancy, easy to use. I had tried other more complicated photo software but I just did not have the time to figure out how to use it.
Well, that was then. This is now!
Not June over at These Go To Eleven told me about Photoshop Elements. Under $100 and at the time, Amazon was also running a $30 rebate and it sounded great. More editing options and Not June just raved about the photo organization features.
All I can say is wow! I will admit that I am a bit intimidated by the full-blown Photoshop but Elements is just perfect and Not June was so right about the organizational features. Actually I haven't even used the editing features yet because I have been having so much fun organizing. From what I have seen it has a fair number of advanced editing features (you can do layers and masking and tons of advanced editing and special effects) but so far seems very easy to use.
The fun part for me so far has been going through all my photos (all 5000+ of them) and categorizing them. I had previously tried to do a little bit of this with folders but mostly I just saved by date. As I needed them, I would pull pictures out into separate folders…which meant a lot of duplication and having to remember where photos were saved. Now I can use tags and set up collections (for events etc). The flexibility is incredible. So cool.
I especially like being able to view the photos by date rather then by file location. And I have realized how many of the dates on my pictures are off! At one point I must have had my camera set wrong because I had tons of pictures for May, June and July 2007 yet none for 2006! So it is taking me a little while to clean things up, but it is going to be incredible.
The only thing that I am having to really get used to is moving files around…it can be hard to remember if I am moving the actual files on my computer or just in Photoshop. It can be a bit confusing, but I am getting more used to it the more that I use it.
I seriously doubt that I will grow out of Elements any time soon. Thanks so much Not June for the recommendation!
Of course, this is yet something that will have to compete with my blogging time…has anyone out there figured out how to add more hours in the day?
Or reduce the amount of sleep I need?
Anyone? Please?
