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Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, due out mid-March, is touted as a large advancement over the previous version, Photoshop Elements 4. There are many new features, and the program as a whole has been further targeted at consumers, but overall, it doesn’t seem like enough has changed to call it an important release. This section of the Photoshop Elements 6 review will focus on speed and new features.

Keep in mind that the review copy of Photoshop Elements is in beta, and therefore may include some glitches or performance issues not found in the final retail copy.

Launching Photoshop Elements is a painful process. Startup took about 17 seconds: six bounces of the icon on the dock, then about 11 seconds on the splash screen. This is about the same as Photoshop Elements 4.0, which was running through emulation.

Using the tools is noticeably snappier in 6 compared to version 4. There is no more lag when drawing with a paintbrush. The paint is consistently underneath the brush. Actually editing the picture is a lot more satisfying in version 6, as everything happens within reasonable time. However, when using the distort transform feature, It was laggy, and it kept giving me errors, telling me that the required transformation was not supported. Once I clicked OK, and attempted to move the transformation, it would give me the error again.

Overall, the Full Editing mode is largely unchanged in version 6, and it’s main benefits are speed increases.

Where Elements 6.0 shines compared to its predecessor is in the guided and quick edit modes.

The Guided Edit Mode is extremely good for the novice user. It displays a list of common photo tasks on the sidebar, and when they are clicked upon, provides a simple window allowing the user to make those edits. The only problem with the Guided Edit mode is that it seems misplaced. It is a very simple area, and someone who would need to use such a basic level of editing would probably not purchase Photoshop Elements in the first place.

Quick Mode is nothing special. While it works fine, it offers nothing over iPhoto, and once again, I feel it is a misplaced feature. In fact, it doesn’t offer nearly as much as iPhoto does, boasting only a “Smart Fix”, color contrast, lighting, and sharpening. This mode is definitely not a reason to purchase version 6. iPhoto will work fine. For the heavy Elements user who just needs a fast edit, however, the quick mode is perfect.

Photomerge is the most touted feature of Photoshop Elements 6. It works well when the correct circumstances are met. The example photos provided to reviewers are virtually identical. The subjects are standing in the same places, the difference is that a couple people are blinking. PhotoMerge worked great to clone the open eyes overtop of the blinking ones, and the photo came out well. However, when I tried it with a personal photo, it fell to bits.

My personal photos were two group photos. The difference between the two was that in one, a child was making a silly face, and in the other,he was making a nice face, but was running out of the picture. When I tried to clone the nice face onto the silly face, it cloned into the place respective to where he was running out of the picture. So now I had a nice face floating in midair next to the original. I then used the align feature to tell the program that his two faces were the same thing. It ended up skewing the photo on a terrible slant, and I could not clone. Basically, what I got from that is that Photomerge is best used for small imperfections, not someone running out of the photo.

Overall, this version of Photoshop only offers benefits for someone who needs a speed boost but does not want to move up to CS3.