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With visions of organizing your digital-photo collection and making a masterpiece out of the DV footage from your most recent vacation, you finally went out and bought a multimedia PC. But that's only half the battle. You also need the perfect complement of software. Here are two apps that will keep you on top of the multimedia game: Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 and Pinnacle Studio 8.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0
A fully equipped multimedia PC begs for a digital-imaging application to edit and manage your fast-growing image file collection. Such applications range from basic programs for beginners to advanced programs for professional photographers. Most people need something in the middle—a powerful program that's not too costly or difficult to use. We found such a program in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 ($99 list — Check Prices), which is designed for amateur photographers and photo hobbyists who have outgrown basic editing programs but don't need the advanced features found in professional programs such as Adobe Photoshop 7.0 ($609 list — Check Prices). Photoshop Elements provides an intuitive interface and extensive help to make organizing, editing, and sharing digital images a fun, absorbing, and satisfying process.
There are various ways to populate Photoshop Elements files: import image files from a scanner, digital camera, hard drive, or CD; grab a frame from a video file; create new images; or import a PDF file. A new feature, batch processing, lets you change the filenames of a group of photos to recognizable names before you start editing. The program's file browser helps you organize and manage image files and select files to display in the large window for editing.
If you aren't sure where to start, Photoshop Elements has a Recipes feature that provides step-by-step instructions for common tasks such as fixing photos and applying filters, effects, and layer styles. These are just a few of the Photoshop tools that encourage you to express yourself. Other tools help you create panoramas, photo collages, and original artwork. Your edit history is tracked by the program, which supports undoing up to 1,000 image file edits.
Sharing your edited images is easy with Photoshop Elements. You can send files as e-mail attachments, post files to the Web, transmit images to the online specialty print service Shutterfly, customize print layouts, and create slide shows in PDF format for viewing on a PC or PDA.
Photoshop Elements is a great choice for multimedia PC user who wants to go beyond the photo basics with a program that offers comprehensive yet mistake-proof features for organizing, editing, enhancing, and sharing digital images. (Adobe Systems Inc., 888-724-4508, www.adobe.com.)
Pinnacle Studio 8
A robust video application for the perfect multimedia PC, Pinnacle Studio 8 ($100 street — Check Prices) servers as a video editor and publisher for novice and intermediate videographers. With a prominent menu tab structure to match its three modes, Capture, Edit, and Make Movie, Studio 8 offers an intuitive interface for importing, modifying, and sharing video files in a variety of formats.
Studio 8 accepts video and audio file imports from camcorders, VCRs, USB video cameras, and Webcams via FireWire, composite, or S-Video connection. The Capture mode screen dynamically displays incoming video, captured scenes, and free hard drive space. The program's SmartCapture feature lets you preserve hard drive space by storing an entire tape in low quality and then recapturing selected scenes in high quality for your final movie.
The video editing fun begins in Edit mode, which provides the raw material for creating original movies, including your captured video, transitions, editable titles, digital images, video frames, sound effects in WAV and MP3 formats, animation files in AVI format, and editable chapter menus for VCD, S-VCD, and DVD authoring.
Examples of video-editing techniques supported by Studio 8 include combining and subdividing scenes from one or multiple input files (with a redirection process to restore original scenes), adjusting playback speed, adding color highlights to activated menu buttons, importing CD audio tracks, and recording voice narration. The program's SmartSound tool lets you create background music for your video by selecting a style, songs, and versions from embedded sound files.
Once your video is created, Studio 8 offers an impressive list of output options, including videotape, digital movie, streaming video, and DVD disc. The Make Movie mode screen displays varying settings depending on output mode. For example, to make a DVD, you select Video CD, S-VCD, or DVD as the output media; with DVD you can elect to create a disc image file to store on your hard drive.
Videography is a challenging hobby, but Studio 8 includes more than adequate features and smart tools for capturing an audience with entertaining videos. (Pinnacle Systems Inc., 888-484-3366, www.pinnaclesys.com.)
Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.
