Others say...

"Nice upgrade"
I did not upgrade when PE 6.0 came out due to all the negative reviews. So, this time I upgraded to 7.0 from 5.0. Screens are very similar and allowed me to start using the software immediately. My only gripe it that it takes forever for the software to open each time I use it. I would highly recommed this product. I am not going to get into all the technical details, I will leave that to the others with more time and experience. For a home-photographer this product is the best and I have used Adobe Photoshop Elements for years now.

"Don't waste your money"
I do not have this version, I have the one from last year, but from the other reviews it looks like nothing has changed for the better. I was using windows moviemaker and the freeware that came with my Panasonic dv camcorder and decided to upgrade to Premier Elements, big mistake. This software cannot import from my camera. It throws up some obscure error code and dies. When I try to import AVI which I have saved using windows movie maker Premier hangs up on generating the audio preview. There is essentially no support from adobe. I have never had any of these problems with my other video software. Worse than a Microsoft freebie, I didn't think that was possible.

"A Version to Avoid"
The primary reason for this release is Adobe launching its new Photoshop website, which is Adobe's attempt to compete with social networking and video/image sharing sites like MySpace, YouTube, and Photobucket. Photoshop Elements 7 allows you to directly share/backup your images on that site.. or, at least, you're supposed to be able to. Every time I uploaded my photos, I got a message that the images were damaged/corrupted and could not be displayed. Fixes for this problem will probably be added quickly (they may already be up by the time you read this review), but it just goes to show that PE7 was released with significant bugs.

Beyond the online aspects, there's not much new in PE7. Most of the new features in Photoshop Elements are things most users were already doing with layers and/or the airbrush tool. Premiere Elements 7 has some new/improved wizards to help you make slide shows and movies, but other video editors have had those features for a while. Premiere Elements also has some of the more common plugins as part of the main PE program now (SmartSound, etc...), but users of previous PE versions already had access to those things. Finally, Premiere Elements is now listed as having AVCHD support, but - since I don't currently use AVCHD - I haven't personally tested this aspect of the software.

The Photoshop Elements 5/Premiere Elements 3 bundle, released back in 2006, was probably the most streamlined Elements version with a full set of features - and Adobe even put out a patch for it to fix what few bugs there were. Since then, the Elements software has gotten more invasive and more bloated every year. Aspects of PE7 constantly run on your system when you boot up, and altering your config files or startup to stop them will require you to re-install PE. Both programs in PE7 also require significant system resources to run properly, yet neither has significantly improved since 2006. Yes, there have been some new features in both since then, but the increased number of bugs in each version, the increased invasiveness, and the lack of post-release patches make the few new features not worth the upgrade.

I can't recommend buying this software. Those with previous versions of PE are better off sticking with them. New users are better off doing some research and buying an older version or a different piece of software entirely. It is a shame that the Elements line has degenerated like this.

"Not what I expected..."
I bought this package thinking that the Photoshop Elements would have had more options from the PE5. I found that I like the PE5 better. It seems like they are moving toward the photoshop.com way. I can no longer find where I can create a Photo Gallery that I can create to my desktop and then upload to my "own" website. Also uploading to the photoshop.com online hasn't worked all that well for me so far. The images are up on their site but you cannot see them??? Also I used to be able to create a flash website using the Gallery feature. Why take it out or at least hide it so I can't find it?

As far as the Premiere Elements go I do like the added features here. But be warned, I thought this whole save to the photoshop.com thing would have included the video end as well. But it doesn't. You can backup your video files to the web but not present them like the Photoshop photos. I do like the added music option in Premiere. I always wondered why this was left out for so long. The green screen options are also really cool.

Maybe I need to upgrade to the pay account to get my photos to work properly?