Pepy-
The short answer is: about $500!

Photoshop Elements (PSE) is a "simplified" version of Photoshop (PS) without some of the more advanced capabilities like complex actions and levels manipulations and layer masks. I'm sure there are more too, but I haven't found them yet in my learning. I used PSE for a year and still to this day use it 90 % of the time. I bought PS CS2 only because they gave me a great deal on it and I wanted to be able to run some of the free actions that are out there.

Now the basic set up is the same between the two, but PSE has a lot more shortcuts to make it more user friendly. People who use PS generally have a bunch of keystrokes memorized that do the same thing as the shortcuts, but I don't have them memorized yet, which is probably why I keep going back to PSE.

But PSE does take some time to get used to as well, it definatley is not an intuitive program, so don't expect to be cranking out super fab LOs on the first day (or week or month for me). But soon enough you can become proficient at the basics of the program and then just keep on learning stuff.

If you are planning on making/selling your own kits then I would jump to PSCS2 for $600 since you will eventully want the advanced capabilities to make realistic items for your kits. But if you are just planning on scrapping and maybe dabbling in making your own kits, then stick with PSE ($100), it really is a powerful program for what most of us want to do!

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I always welcome cc of my LOs!! My work is like me- in progress!

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