Bluer skies? Seriously? Just stop polluting the air in the real world. Right?
Three points.
First, the "blue skies" filter will likely NOT make "brown" skies blue. It will make super-pale-blue skies more dramatically blue. If you want brown skies blue then make a selection of the sky and change the color hue however you feel the need, just like always.
Second, assuming it is Used As Designed, it allows a photograph to more accurately capture what the human eye sees when we look out. We see blue skies which are a far "richer" blue than what the camera tends to capture, as we see in a far greater dynamic range than digital sensors capture. Even if the sensors capture the blue contrast in the sky, it is overwhelmed by the contrast at ground level and the photo doesn't reliably capture what the person standing there (whose brain does quite well at capturing the various hues of blue in the sky as well as the colors on the ground) sees. This kind of post processing is rather standard, often done using dodge/burn techniques to underexpose the bright sky while keeping the foreground subjects properly exposed.
Third, assuming this is built to the same level as other marquee Photoshop Elements "features", it will sorely disappoint most people wanting to use it in any way which is not the straight-down-the-center/what-the-example-on-the-front-of-the-box-depicts way Adobe crippled it into being able to support. If you want to do what it sounds like you *should* be able to do, spend the much larger $$ on Photoshop itself (or wait a year or two for the same feature to be in Pixelmator / Acorn / etc, or figure out how to do it in three clicks instead of one in any number of image editors).
Personally, the crashiness of Photoshop Elements 6 and then 8 and then 9 (yes, I *am* "that sucker") have turned me off PSE altogether. For a moment I was excited to see that there was a new version out there. Then I saw that they are still charging an arm and a leg for it, and I remembered how awful the experience of the last couple of versions was. I'm trying Pixelmator out for my non-Aperture photo edits now; haven't had it crash and haven't been disappointed in the depth of its features yet.
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It's not the full product though for either version. The Amazon versions give you Smart Sound and the organizer. If you don't need those features, save $10, but it's not really cheaper. It's less product. A lot of people use the organizer. iPhoto isn't exactly the joy it used to be. I welcome alternatives to iPhoto, which gets more bogged down with each release.
??? Um, they only usually offer an upgrade discount on the full blown Photo Shop program. So no one is going to complain about something Adobe has never done. Years ago, you may have seen a copy at Sam's Club with a $20 mail in rebate if you owned product A, B, or C, but that was about it.
Actually I bought PSE 6, and "upgraded" with a $20 discount to PSE 8 and then PSE 9. This was a year or two ago, but hardly what "years ago" would imply.
Links to support? $80 has always been around the price of any version of Elements except when nearing a new release. Then you sometimes see a discount offer. Hardly the same thing.
Right after the release, registered owners of the previous versions would get an email touting the new features and offering a $20 discount off the MSRP for the new version if bought directly from Adobe.
I have also seen PSE 9 for $15 under Adobe's price at Costco about a month after release.
Sorry, can't provide links to my email box nor to the recording of me walking through Costco and thinking "well, at least my discounted 'upgrade' was $5 better than a non-upgrader walking into Costco!" Which of course might exist on a security camera archive somewhere, but is unlikely to be annotated with my thoughts as I looked at the box
