Adobe Premiere Elements 7 is a video editing application that allows you to make movies and slideshows using your own footage and digital photographs. It includes a number of automated options that should be appealing to beginners and general hobbyists, but it also offers several advanced features for those users looking for a more hands-on approach when creating their own video productions.
In this review, we’ll take a look at the new features available in this latest release of Premiere Elements as well as some of the older ones to see how the program measures up as a video editing application.
To use Premiere Elements 7, your machine should meet the following minimum system requirements.
- 1.8GHZ processor with SSE2 support (3GHz for HDV or Blu-ray, dual-core processor needed for AVCHD)
- Windows XP (SP 2 or higher), Media Center, or Vista
- 512MB RAM for XP, 1GB RAM for Vista (2GB required for HDV, Blu-ray, and AVCHD)
- 4.5GB hard drive space
- Color monitor with 16-bit video card
- 1024 X 768 resolution at 96dpi or less
- QuickTime 7
Other requirements may be necessary, depending on the tasks you want to accomplish with the software. For more detailed information, check out the Adobe web site. Additionally, if you plan on editing or creating large files, more RAM is helpful.
For this review, Premiere Elements 7 was installed on a PC running 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate with 4GB of RAM. No problems were encountered during the installation process, and the software setup was a breeze.
While Premiere Elements 7 supports a number of advanced features, the software interface takes into account that many users of the application will be new to the world of video editing. When you first open the program, you’ll be met with a welcome screen where you can choose to create an instant movie, open an existing product, or begin development of a new project. Additionally, if you have an account with Photoshop.com, you can sign in to that site from this screen.
The main application interface is extremely intuitive, and even first time users should be able to feel their way around without too much trouble. However, it is well worth the time to watch some of the free video tutorials for the product – we’ll talk more about those in the User Support section of this review.
The ability to drag and drop both clips of video files and still images to the sceneline makes basic movie creation simple and fun. You can play back the production at any time during the creation process to get an idea of how it is progressing without having to leave the editing interface.
Even though I’ve had no experience with prior Adobe video editing tools, I was able to create and edit a basic movie within minutes of starting up the application. So, the learning curve for Premiere Elements 7 is definitely on the side of users who don’t want to spend hours (or even days) reading manuals or searching through help forums. I was definitely impressed.
Continue on to page 2 of this review to find out about the features and pricing options for Adobe Premiere Elements 7.