Adobe Premiere Elements 10
3 stars
$99.99, including VAT
www.adobe.com/uk
Used to be the video
adjustment champion of users, but Adobe Premiere
Elements did spend a few years at
desolate place. Good looking effects and time-saving features that an
adjustment has are not too important if the basic ability of video adjustment
is harmed by unusual preview and slow controls.
With version 10, Premiere Elements is available
under the form of 64-byte app, and preview performance is much improved.
Version 9 can only manage a few streams at the same time, or only one clip of Canon EOS 550D on our Core i7 test PC before the preview pauses, which make you unable to
adjust more. Version 10, running on Windows 7 (64 bytes) and similar hardware, can at once play 7 AVCHD streams và 4 EOS 600D streams, which
helps it be elevated to be equal to the best consuming adjustment packs. It
does well for those who want to create complex heading and photo animation
series as well as those who adjust HD footage slowly on PC.
However, adjusting timeline
and many different tab-tables is usually terribly slow, even on our quite quick
test PC. Even with an only stream video, replaying is not smooth as it should
be, with unusual replay of photo frame causing plodding moves at preview. Adobe
at least solves one bug in which 1,080i scene is not alternated when exported
in 720p, which causes serrated forms. This has happened for a long time – we
first reported this problem in the judgement of version 8.
Usually, Adobe’s effort
appears to focus on dependent features. Having new topics for InstantMovie feature and
larger output control, but it still leads to bulky related to the original
footage. The topics are attractive but rather specific with names such as Doggie Days, and Outdoor Wedding. The more
popular topics are preferred.
New Pan and Zoom Tool detects face in
photo and is deserved with its name as shifting from a face to another. It is a
good idea but carried out badly. Face detection brings much affected
sanguineness. In our first test, it zoomed in a teen-aged girl’s bust. It
shifted to the face, but zooming in so large that the photo appeared to be
cubic while lines and bluff started and ended similarly to Crimewatch’s report.
It is easy to change position
and size of each point in photo in photo animation, but the only way to create
curve and light speed-up move is through keyframe tools that are not easy to find. They are worth mastering, but
once you do so, you can also design photo animation at first. Discordant
relationship between function for newbies and the one for Premiere Elements’s fans makes it
difficult for newbies to go up to more advanced technology.
New color adjustment effects
are so great. AutoTone and Vibrance make colors diversified and lively, and there is manual control
if auto process does not work. Three-Way Color Corrector allows complex adjustments, removes or applies colors for
highlight, midtone and shadow by using three colored wheels. It will be better if its controls
match with the screen without scrolling.
Output options include AVCHD disk putting video in Blu-ray quality to DVD disk playing
in most Blu-ray disks. You can upload to Facebook as well as Youtube, but video
is changed to 30fps, which harms move smooth ratio. There are templates for
points to other outputs, but its frame speed is not suitable for the origin.
iPad templates use low resolution (640x360).
It is too difficult for us
to support Premiere Elements. It is the only user adjustment app equipped to create complex
photo animation, but for family video, we prefer refined Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum.
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Summary
Verdict. Preview performance and color adjustment are much improved, but
we cannot skip dull controls and annoying crashes.
Video
adjustment software. Windows XP
SP2/Vista/7, 2GHz processor with SSE2 support (requiring dual core to adjust
HD), 2GB RAM, 9GB disk space.
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