Is Photoshop Elements useful to cardmaking?

[Craftwise]

Hi!
I just read that Amazon has Photoshop Elements 14 on sale for $40 if a Prime member.

Before I bite...lol...I am searching to find out if there are really good reasons to have a software like this.

I *do* own a great photo printer, but I got it mostly because it was on sale and a large format printer that I can use canvas and large heavy cardstock etc. with

I have MTC and a KNK Maxx cutter and would love to know if anyone uses Photoshop Elements in their cardmaking? I make mostly cards and tags, I do not do digital scrapbooking.

Is there anything I should know about this software that would make it a great purchase for mixed media art? LOL

Thank you!
Sherri

[gregzgurl]

One of the bloggers I've followed recommended this book: Digital Expressions: Creating Digital Art With Photoshop Elements, and she made some AMAZING things! A lot of them are in the archives from 2011 or so... I wonder if it will be the same with a newer version of Photoshop Elements, though...?

Thanks for the heads-up on the sale, too! I used to have Photoshop Elements on my old computer, but never really took the time to learn what it could do. I did use it to create some digital stamps, though... I may have to get the program and the book, myself!

[Craftwise]

Digital stamps...
LOL I just got a Heidi Swap MINC and a laser printer So I am thinking that maybe it would be easier to *merge* things in Photoshop than it is to add things together in the Microsoft Word 2013 program that came with my computer?

You may have given me an idea. I have printed some words and an image or two on my laser printer and foiled them...came out beautiful! But Word is so awkward to use now it seems........much different than the 2007 version I had for years...that I just don't see using it for anything other than text, and even that is not so great.

Do you know if Elements also does great things with text?
Everything I do will be printed and used on physical cards etc. not digital if that helps.

Thank you! The sale price only shows up once in the cart if you are a Prime member

Sherri

[gregzgurl]

Yes, you can manipulate text in PE...

[poppydarling]

I can't remember which version I got for my Mac, but it is a really amazing software. I designed the header for my Etsy shop with it. Even though it's called "Elements" it's not exactly Photoshop Lite — it's pretty powerful and there is a definite learning curve to learning how to use it.

Don't know if you saw this FAQ but it outlines what it can do:

FAQ | Adobe Photoshop Elements 14

[Rachelrose]

In terms of cards: Elements is really useful for spiffing up your photos to post to your gallery.

I have the full version of PS, and don't use most of its features. I mostly just spiff up photos.

You can do text in it. But unless you want to do something weird with text, you can generate text in Word. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I generate my text in Illustrator. Just my pref, I was an Illustrator user before Photoshop was even invented.

Elements is a good program, and I could see lots of ways to use it for mixed media art. But it is not one you are going to be able to learn in ten minutes. It's a nicely scaled down version of Photoshop, and both do have a learning curve. Just saying. People will tell you you can learn it from watching YouTube videos but I think that would be a hard and piecemeal way to do it. If I wanted to learn Elements, I would bite the bullet, subscribe for one month to Lynda.com, and watch an Elements course all the way through. One month would cost $25. Then you'd really know know what you were doing and could make the most of it for creating and altering images for mixed media pieces.

[planet43]

Can't find it on Amazon for that price...prime member too

[cms]

I just ordered it from Amazon for $39.99. When I put it in my cart, it still showed $99 but I went to "check out" and there it reflected a discount of $59.01. So it's still at the lower price for Prime members, as long as you go thru to check out. HTH!!

[darlenemcg]

I got it for $39.99 good deal