Adobe Premiere Elements 8 Video Editing Software (1)

Adobe Premiere Elements 8 is a significant upgrade from previous versions of this easy-to-use video editor.
Adobe Premiere Elements 8 makes significant strides over its predecessor, Premiere Elements 7. Premiere Elements 8 ($100, or $140 with a Photoshop.com Plus membership; prices as of 9/23/09) adds file organizing and keywording, plus greater integration with Photoshop Elements, while making it much easier to edit and use videos in style.

The most obvious (and most welcome) addition to Premiere Elements is the Organizer. Adopted from Photoshop Elements, the Organizer allows you to view, keyword-tag, and organize videos and photos; and when you have the two Elements programs installed, it acts as a conduit to both programs via a single interface. It automates keywording through Auto Analysis of image content (including face recognition) and Smart Tagging (of video quality), starting instantly when you import files. In addition, you can drag and drop tags onto a video while it previews, which can be quite useful since the most important content of a movie might not be in the first frame.
You can back up, share, and archive the Organizer database and media files–and even sync them with your other computers–using Adobe’s Photoshop.com wizard from within Premiere Elements (assuming that your other computers have an Elements 8 program installed). Premiere Elements 8 comes with a Basic membership to Adobe’s photo-sharing site, Photoshop.com, plus 2GB of online storage at the site. If you pay $40 more, you get a Plus membership that includes 20GB of storage, as well as template and tutorial goodies.

The interface provides two ways to create movies from your video: Instant Movie and manual creation. However, the two aren’t divided processes so much as they are a workflow continuum. Instant Movie can use the new Smart Tags to create a movie, with music and transitions, based on your selected Flash template. Smart Tags attempt to guide the Instant Movie function away from using boring, blurred, or otherwise undesirable clips within the movie. In addition, Premiere Elements 8 offers more customization tools for Instant Movie, such as sliders to adjust the clip speed and/or the number of effects that will apply automatically. Like any automatic tool, Instant Movie doesn’t always produce great movies. The results do tend to be pleasant, though sometimes rough, with the clip order not always logical or smooth. You may prefer to use Premiere Elements 8’s manual tools to edit the Instant Movie, or to start your own from scratch.

(to be countinued)
http://www.washingtonpost.com