Martine,
I know we likely can make PD 2.0 work with XP
Quite possibly. However, don’t count on it. Some things may not work properly. Don’t know about PD 2.0, but I was able to get PD 3.0 to install and run well on XP with a patch from the Adobe support site. However, even if you get it running, it’s worth upgrading to PE 2 anyway. PE is so much more powerful and PD has been discontinued so support will be lacking.
First question: can photos saved in PD 2.0 be opened by Photoshop
Elements?
Yes. I was able to open my PD 3.0 files with no problem and I believe PD
2.0 used the same file format. It’s essentially the same as the photoshop
format. Of course, not all the things the photoshop file format supports is supported in PD.
Also, we would love to hear from anyone who has used both and can give us
feedback on what they like and don’t like in old vs. new.
Photodeluxe was targeted at the same basic/casual user audience as products such as Photo Impression and PictureIt! The user interface is easier for a casual user to understand and use; it fairly well guided you through the steps. However, the capabilities are far less than PE.
PE can do much more and has a much steeper learning curve so you need to spend time learn how to use it but don’t let that intimidate you. There are a number of good books to help you learn and this forum is a great place to get help. Lots of tutorials are on the Internet and there are even low-cost on-line classes available. You should be able to make the transition from PD fairly easily although PE will probably seem strange at first.
One thing you’ll notice is that the clone tool works differently. However, it’s fairly easy to get used to the new behavior. Also, the PD red-eye tool is considered by some to work better than the PE tool.
PD layers are much more basic than PE. PE provides much more layer capability. I don’t know whether or not you worked with layers in PD, that was a feature that wasn’t emphasized although it was documented in the help file.
Another big difference is the lack of projects and activities. If that is important to you, you can get some of that back with other programs such as Adobe Photoshop Album which provides the album/catalog capabilites as well as project activities.
At first, while I was still learning PE, I went back to PD when I was in a rush (because I was more familiar with it) but after I got comfortable with PE there was no turning back.
I hope this helps,
Bob
