Upon returning from my recent trip scuba diving in Grand Cayman, one of the first things I did was insert into my computer the CD that contained the 350 underwater pictures I had taken. Although I was pleased with many of the shots I captured with the Sea & Sea DX750G camera I rented, I was disappointed with others. One of the reasons I had rented the camera, after all, was to snap photos suitable for framing. However, I found many of the images needed color correction. Recognizing I'm not a professional underwater photographer, I understand I shouldn't expect endless, perfect images, though.

Neverthelss, I eagerly loaded the images into Picasa. While Picasa has some editing features built into it, it's really more of an electronic photo album; it's not ideal editing software. Nevertheless, I lightened, cropped, and copied some of the images onto a disc and took the disc to the Picture Maker so I could print them. I was pleased with the photos, but I was not amazed, so later that day, I went to Best Buy and bought Adobe's Photoshop Elements 4.0. Not Adobe's top-of-the-line photo-editing program, Elements is sort of a "Photoshop Lite." However, for my purposes it seemed adequate. Happily, the software I purchased was bundled with Premiere Elements 2.0 -- their video editing software -- and although it was priced at $149, after the sale price and the rebate, I brought home both applications for $69.

Is Elements 4.0 worth $69? In a word: absolutely. Although it's a bit tricky to use, it yields eye-popping results!

The Caveat

Let me first state that I've never used Photoshop before. Ever. So I'm not qualified to compare Elements 4.0 to its previous editions or to Photoshop, itself. (For a more comprehensive review, check out Connected Home. For snippets of reviews from the press, check out Photoshop's website.) However, after installing it, I opened it and started to poke around. It has a nice Organizer feature that allows you to view, tag, and order your photos. In the Organizer, you can also do some light edits, send photos to friends, and order images for printing. Coll, for sure, but many of these tools are available in (free) Picasa, too.

However, it's the Editor component of the application where you really get your money's worth. In Editor, you can radically adjust colors; cut bits out of one photo and paste it into another photo; erase unwanted, distracting blemishes from otherwise great photos; and much, much more. As I say, I'm a novice, so I can't speak about all the capabilities the program offers. What I really wanted to know is: how does it work for improving underwater images?

For Starters

I had been encouraged to use the smart tool in the Quick Edits, because it was a one-touch fix for photo processing. I played with that, and while it was nice ( and easy!), it didn't seem to be satisfactory for underwater images. I haven't played with it on topside images -- and it may be great for them -- but in my opinion, the one-touch quick fix is not appropriate for underwater shots.

Next, I decided to play with the hue, saturation, color casts, etc. This is where I ran into a problem. The manual that Elements provides merely explains what the tools in the software do; they don't provide step-by-step instructions for brushing up your images. I was completely lost. Elements 4.0 is simply not intuitive for the casual user. Darnit, I thought, was this a waste of money?

The Next Step

Then I remembered the tutorial Divester posted a long time ago about color-correcting in Photoshop. I was frustrated at first, because the post seemed long and complicated, but I chose one of the pictures that I felt was the best, followed the instructions carefully, and I was totally stunned: I had resurrected a previously-unusable photo. I quickly followed the process for a few more of the photos, and I was equally impressed. After a few edits, in fact, I found the process not that difficult, at all.

To show you what I mean, here are some photos. The first is the original; the second is what Picasa yielded; and the final is the Elements 4.0 result.

Original:

Picasa:

Elements (note that I brushed out the distracting black blob in the lower right-hand corner):

Original:

Picasa:

Elements:

Original:

Picasa:

Elements:

Original:

Picasa:

Elements:

Original:

Picasa:

Elements:

Original:

Picasa:

Elements:

Conclusion

There are a number of things I like about Elements 4.0.

1. The price was right.
2. The results can be fantastic.
3. The Organizer is easy-to-use.
4. Even beginners can do the Quick Edits from the outset: straighten, crop, brush out blemishes, etc. You can figure it out just by playing with the program.

There are a number of things, however, that might frustrate the casual user:

1. The Standard Editing process (i.e., the Editor that's more than the Quick Fix) is not intuitive. The provided manual is more of "What's Inside" than a "How To." To understand and use Elements well, I think you either need to take a class or purchase a guide, such as Photoshop Elements 4.0: The Missing Manual.
2. When editing the images, they appear very small on the screen, and while I can tell that they're improved, it's hard to tell by how much they've improved.
3. The application takes a long time to move between the Organizer and the Editor. Admittedly, my computer is vintage 2002 <Gasp!>, and is generally slow, but I feel like Elements is an unusually slow-moving program.

All in all, however, I'm delighted with the package and spend time each day touching up my images. I know that I'll wind up with many killer shots. And without Elements 4.0, I couldn't have done it.

Have you used Elements 4.0? What do you think?