Photoshop Elements: Truly Awful

Oh God, I finally got Photoshop Elements installed and now (right this second, actually, I'm in the middle of a shift) I'm trying to use it. Oh please kill me. 

Thank god I spent $1000 on this 30-inch monitor so Adobe could fill the screen with its atrocious interface. That's right: There's no way to keep Photoshop from hogging the entire screen! Even if you have a big monitor. 

Of course Adobe doesn't tell you this when you buy the product. One of the Amazon reviews mentioned it, but I read another review elsewhere that implied this setting could be changed. Ars Technica: "the default behavior of the editing workspace is a 'maximized' view..." Uh, no, not the DEFAULT behavior. The only behavior! And the only way I know is this more honest online review.

There's also nothing in the sparse Photoshop documentation, and Barbara Brundage's "Missing Manuals" book is useless on this topic, I guess she couldn't fit in a discussion of the 2560-pixel-wide elephant in the room while gushing about how "cool" this program is.

Not that I'm bitter!

(Disclaimer: I'm bitter.)

Photoshop Elements 6 Support Sucks

I need an image editor for work to do basic things like selectively blurring text in documents and putting a couple of images side-by-side. Not rocket science, but every week it seems like there's more I need to do.

Many people encouraged me to simply pirate Adobe Photoshop. I don't believe in doing that sort of thing, and I've heard good things about Adobe Photoshop Elements, which costs about $80, so I bought it. Out of my own pocket, since I'm a contractor.

Today I went to install it. Here, in full, are the directions, provided by Adobe:

"Close any Adobe applications open on your computer. Insert the installation disc into your DVD drive and follow the on-screen instructions."

Well, guess what? When you insert the DVD, NOTHING HAPPENS.

OK, so I open the Readme file. This contains NO INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO INSTALL THE SOFTWARE. There is a section called "INSTALLING" but -- whoops! -- it never actually explains how to, uh, do the install. It just lists system requirements, some things you're not allowed to do and some things that might go wrong.

Normally, I would just drag the App on the DVD to the Applications folder on my hard drive. But 1. there's a bunch of different folders and icons and 2. Adobe Elements is known to not use this Mac convention.

I go looking through the manual for a phone number to call. There is none. IM? None. Email address? None. AT LEAST A WEB URL?? NO!!

OK Adobe, you don't think it's worth it to support me at $80. Why would I ever spend $800 with you? Oh right, because you're the only game in town.