Is Photoshop Elements 9 a worthwhile upgrade from Elements 6

[DSPalpatine]

Quick question for the forum- In addition to my day job (university gig), my hobby is photography. I do most of my post-processing with Aperture 3, but I use Photoshop Elements 6 for some re-touching that isn't possible in A3. I was looking at Elements 9 (specifically, the new spot healing brush looks fantastic), but I was wondering if I could get a bit more feedback from people who have upgraded. Any input as to whether to upgrade to 9 or stay with 6 would be appreciated. Also, if there is another program I'm overlooking (Acorn or Pixelmator), I'd love to hear about that as well. If the consensus is that Elements 9 isn't a huge upgrade, I'll probably put the money toward Nik's Silver Efx Pro.

Thanks!

 

[wilhelmreems]

i've found the most worthwhile editing tool in PSE9 is the panorama tool. I do most of my editing/developing in LR3. The touchups in PSE9 are pretty nice, too, and i can fine tune my edits pretty well.

if you do use the panorama tool, just be aware it requires a lot of RAM to have the program automatically process and fill in the gaps at the edge of the photo.

 

[xStep]

That damn Adobe! They don't know how to write a proper installer, so Elements 9 and many if not all of their products can NOT be installed on OS X if you have it setup with a case sensitive file system.

 

[BJB Productions]

I personally like the update; there's not a lot of new features I've run into though. The UI is nicer; but also takes some getting used to. The trash, copy, etc icons moved from the top to the bottom of the layers..so that takes just some getting used to. I mostly use it for the spot healing brush too. I'm not sure how much better it is compared to 6, but I think it works really nice. It still takes forever to startup...sometimes can be a little laggy on my MBP. (but I don't have amazing specs) Of course, Adobe is known for having bloated apps anyway...

Now I'm rambling. So yes- I think it's worth it....it's got some great new features, but in some ways it's also the same compared to 6.