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REVIEW selectively blurs foreground and backgrounds to give the impression of a narrow depth-of-field, effectively making a scene look like it was shot as a miniature. On the artsy side, it also can add High Key and Low Key lighting effects. One of our favorite additions turns photos into illustrations ranging from comic style to delicate pen and ink drawings. PS Elements Expert Mode opens up all of its tools and effects. As you get more familiar with the program. You can use a Guided Edit to get in the ballpark and then switch to Expert mode to fine-tune what you did. Elements uses the same Adobe Camera Rawprocessor as Photoshopand Li ghtroomto open raw images (these are large files, but the format of choice but the format of choice for anyone serious about their pictures). And Lightroom users may want to take note that Elements 11 offers so many of Photoshop CS's basic capabilities, it would be a viable alternative for anyone who doesn't need all of the latter's power, glory and expense. A Notable Premiere No program has ever come up with way to make video editing both simple for the first-timer and flexible enough for an amateur videographer with grand visions and modest budgets. Elements 11 manages to take video editing in both directions. It has tools for those of us whose movie making interests don't go much further than switching our cameras to video mode once in a while to the rest of us for whom videography opens up whole new horizons. For those simply looking for the fastest way to package up their vacation photos and videos and ship them off to the in-laws, there's the Instant Movie option. Select a bunch of photos and video clips in the Organizer, open the video editor and tell it to go. You'll be given a choice of family- oriented themes, shown a couple of sliders to fine-tune the look, have the option to add opening titles and closing credits and in a few moments you have a video. To get something pleasing, it required some experimenting with the settings, but the process was so fast and required so little effort, that this wasn't an issue. The rendering makes use of the great Adobe Medi a Encoderframework so you can go from camera to YouTube with the best possible quality (and without knowing anything about video encoding). If you don't want to work entirely on autopilot, there's a clip-oriented editing mode (like i Movie). When you drag stills into a movie in any editing mode, PE 11 can apply an automatic pan and zoom to give the stills some motion. You can direct the action or let the program intelligently move around the images and provide a very pleasing variety of movement. In fact, it does this task startlingly well. In its Expert Mode, Premiere Elements 11 switches to the same kind of multi-layer timeline used by professional editors. You get frame accurate control (or at least very close to it) for extreme precision. For multi- layer effects, PE 11 adds Photoshop's popular (and often mysterious) blending modes. All we have space to say here is, try them—you'll be amazed at what they can do. We were also a bit startled at the selection of 3D transitions on our Mac Product > Adobe Photoshop El ements 11and Premiere Elements 11 Made by > Price > Adobe Systems (Adobe.com) $99.99 (each, full version), $149.99 (both); Upgrades $79.99 & $119.99 System requirements > Multicore Intel Processor, MacOS 10.6 or later Pros > Cons > Rating > Feature set that will make many levels of users happy; Improved interface; Smart and useful tools Some fully-automatic features still require a bit of tweaking version. There are several that are not yet available on Premiere CS6 for the Mac. In their discussions with the media (us), Adobe refers to its Elements line as "hobbyist" software. With Elements 11, this is quite likely even more apropos than they thought. For some, hobbies evolve over time from a pastime to a passion. Elements 11 is just fine for those times for when you come back from vacation and want to quickly and easily share some of the memories you've captured. The greatest thing about it though is that, not too far under the surface, is a depth in which you can spend your cold and cloudy weekends exploring and experimenting. Photoshop and Premiere Elements, coordinated by the rather elegant Organizer are programs that seem to grow and expand with your interest and inspiration. And that is a great place to start a most enjoyable hobby. 92 MacDirectory