Expert: Mark Evans - 1/23/2004

Question
Hello,

I am considering purchasing photoshop 7.0 (not ready to upgrade from my windows 98 at this time, hence the 7.0 version).
I have a strong background in landscape and portrait photography. I have a canon 10D and several very nice lenses, with a high quality photo printer.
Question: Would the purchase price ($500.00) for 7.0 be of real benefit to me over elements 2.0 if I am only going to focus on enhancing my digital photography work?
I give much weight to the end result having high quality. I don't see myself getting into web design, or drawing.

Thank you for your time.
Steve


Answer
Hi Steve,

If you are serious about photography (and having a 10D certainly puts you in this category) then go for photoshop 7.

Photoshop Elements is a good program and has many of the features of Photoshop 7 but it doesn't give you a lot of flexibility. Much of it is based on preset features and, although you can get under the hood a bit, this is a limiting factor.  

If you want total control over how your image looks then you can't go past Photoshop 7.  If you only want to adjust the levels, brightness/contrast, do a bit of manual spot removal or apply a few preset filters then Elements maybe a good choice.

I wouldn't be without Photoshop and run all my digital images through it (I work with a Canon 300D Digital Rebel)

You might also consider a little program called NeatImage (as well as Photoshop 7 or Elements).  This program does excellent noise reduction on digital images - not that the 10D needs much in the way of noise reduction but it can really clean up an image. http://www.neatimage.com/

I hope this helps.

Regards

Mark Evans