Curves in PSE 5 vs 6

[bfcoughlin]

Is there any difference in the Curves tool between versions 5 & 6? I've found the tool in 5 to be very clunky. I had a third party curves tool in version 3 that was smooth and easy to use. I find the tool in version 5 to be extremely slow; and I hate having to start out from a preset rather than my original. Are there improvements in version 6?

[ATR]

This is what I have found so far in Photoshop Elements 6 with regard to your question:
Enhance Menu/Adjust Color/Adjust Color Curves
That takes you to the Adjust Color Curves Dialog with the following description:

To the far left is a column named "Select a Style"
The Styles include
Backlight
Darken Highlights
Default
Increase Contrast
Increase Midtone
Lighten Shadows
Solarize

To the immediate right of Styles are named categories with sliders to the right of the category names.
The categories are:
Adjust Highlights
Midtone Brightness
Midtone Contrast
Adjust Shadows

To the immediate right of these sliders is a small typical Curves graphic complete with lines and points. The points are moved by the selection of Styles and the movement of the sliders and not you with your cursor on a point. At least, I have not found any other way that they can be moved.

For me, there seems to be a lag between the selecting styles/moving slider and seeing the end result. I almost forgot to mention that at the top of the Adjust Color Curves dialog is a split window for a Before and After view.

Maybe I will change my mind, but right now I do not think that Photoshop Curves has to worry about the competition.

ATR

[Stratman]

I recall the PSE5 defaulted to "increase midtones" option and it did not have a true default (i.e. straight diagonal line) choice. PSE6 starts with a true default. This is an improvement, and you can use it on 16-bit files. But it still only lets you move three fixed points (why?), and you cannot adjust individual color channels.

I much prefer the smartcurves plugin.

[Michel B]

I totally agree with smartcurve being the best free curves plug-in:
http://free.pages.at/easyfilter/curves.html
Works in 8 or 16 bits
Not only RGB, but HSL, Lab, CMY ...
Histogram display for each mode
Color correction...