I was reading Digital Photography: The Missing Manual this morning, and it kept talking about all these cool photo retouching features I’d never noticed. I opened up Phtooshop Elements to try them out, and they weren’t there! Then it occurred to me that perhaps it was time to upgrade my ten year old copy of Photoshop Elements 2 for Mac OS 9.
Used to be that almost every scanner bundled Photoshop Elements, and it was cheaper to buy the scanner than to buy the software itself. I think I got my current copy bundled with a Umax scanner. I did a little hunting around on Amazon, but it seems that most scanners are now so cheap that they no longer bundle Photoshop Elements, nor are there that many scanners for sale anyway. (Who needs them any more now that we have digital cameras? Indeed, these days when I need to “scan” a document I usually just snap a quick pick of it with my Panasonic Lumix instead.)
However, there are a few tasks for which a flatbed or sheetbed scanner is still useful, and if I’m going to spend $65-80 on Photoshop Elements anyway, I might as well get an extra toy too. So the question is these days what’s the neatest product under $100 that bundles Photoshop Elements 4 for the Mac? Any scanners, digital cameras, graphics tablets, calibrators or other toys that are worth playing with? Or should I just buy the software alone?
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