[Macworld]

Post your comments for Premiere Elements 9 here

[Photonerd]

It's great Adobe has finally made a Mac version but the obvious areas for improvement IME are polishing all the small UI details that make a Mac app, a Mac app, and overall performance when handling media and playback.

[akeller]

I downloaded the trial version for my iMac 27-inch with an i5 chip; I'm running 10.6.3. Installation failed twice, both with incomprehensible error messages. (Installation has never been an, uh, Adobe strength.) Support is an unhelpful separate application that sends the failure details off to Adobe, presumably without attaching the user's name. I assume the data goes into a great maw somewhere to be chewed up and eliminated.

However frustrating the installation process was, it sounds from this review that running Premiere Elements is even worse. Thanks for the heads-up. Not an app to purchase.

[Deromax]

May this new competition wakes up Apple and make them to overhaul FCE!

[webraider]

I actually took the plunge and purchased it. Photoshop seems to be a much more mature app. This one does seem to be kind of slow, although I haven't had it crash yet. It's just slow. It feels kind of clunky. The one thing I really like about it however is the AVCHD and the fact that I can author and burn a BluRay as well as DVD's. I'm surprise that BluRay was not mentioned in the review, but this is the cheapest way to author a BluRay on the Mac. I hope Apple wakes up as I would love to see DVD burning features built into iMovie and also include the ability to burn BluRay. We'll see what happens.

[brobdingnagian]

So, there is no excuse for Apple not offering AVCHD editing.

[Mau_O]

I had the same issues with Akeller above. Installation is clunky to say the least, it's just weird to download a downloader to get to the actual trial.
Performance wise I also felt an overall lag using the program. It's not as bad but for a moment I wondered if I was using an AIR app.

I'll keep testing the trial to see if Premier Elements can replace iMovie since that's another tough one to use at times. Hoping for a new iLife 10/11 version of iMovie.

[John]

No foolin' about iMovie. What a thoroughly idiotic move! Apple took an intuitive, powerful and extremely appealing consumer app (arguably the crown jewel of iLife) and made a cluttered confusing mess of it and they are keeping the mess going with a similarly styled iPhone app. Apple consumers who I have talked to have said that they have given up on editing their home movies. I sincerely hope that Apple puts out a commercial touting the wonders of iMovie. Only the outcry of the press can say anything that could have an impact.

As for PE, if Adobe can come up with a consumer video editing app that is easier and more intuitive than iDisaster, they will stand to make a ton of money. It looks like PE is not it.

[jackmac13]

I'm using the trials of both Premiere Elements and PSE 9. I already own PSE 8. I can't speak for Premiere Elements other than to agree with the comments made here. It does feel slow. As for PSE 9, it is definitely slower than the previous version. Some of the same filters in both versions even take longer to process. As an example, the Colored Pencil on a 35MB image consistently takes between 25% and 50% longer to process. It just doesn't seem like it's fully optimized or something. The rebate they're offering is available until the end of this year so I think I'm going to hold off purchasing until I see if they release an update to speed these programs up.

[BloreBoy]

Can you comment on the difference between the video editting capabilities in Photoshop Lightroom, and those in Premiere?

[AaronShep]

This review is curiously inadequate. It compares Sceneline editing with iMovie but gives absolutely no hint of how Timeline editing compares with Final Cut Express. For those of us wanting to go beyond iMovie and needing to choose between FCE and Premiere Express -- and why else would anyone pay money for this program instead of using iMovie for free? -- this review is useless.

[RaymondBarr]

I am looking for a better editor than iMovie and thanks to this article, will not be buying Premiere Elements at this point. Hopefully, Apple will improve the next iteration of iMovie and a long overdue upgrade to Final Cut Express 5.

[WarrenS]

I use only Mac products so when they changed iMovie 6, I as others complained then stuck with iMovie HD, but I finally put on my big boy pants and learned the somewhat confusing iMovie.
I must say I don't miss the old iMovie at all. The sound editing I leave to Garage Band (an interesting move by Apple) and with that iMovie is a complete easy to use editor.
I must say the format used by Elements looks almost identical to iMovie & the screenshot above looks just like the layout I use when using iMovie.

[lichinho]

How hard is it to make a real Mac video application that integrates a media browser (accessing your iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie libraries), provides multi-track editing, easily accesses any core graphics filter, has a clean mac user-interface and has a decent price?

As it turns out, there is one, and it is not from Apple (much less from Adobe).
Take a look at Norrkross Movie. Much more powerful than iMovie (either 6 or later), much less complex to use than FCE. And made by one guy in Sweden.

I have iMovie (came with my mac), Norrkross and FCE (these two I bought). For heavy work, I use FCE; for simpler projects, Norrkross. I would not touch (and certainly would not buy) the current iMovie.

(Disclaimer: I have no connection to Norrkross except as a satisfied customer)