Beings as that I have a bad attitude, I interpret programs that exhibit these behaviours as “spyware”. After all, the PSE-8 download is now in excess of 1GB…! That said, they couldn’t have the hubris to claim they, “didn’t want to bloat the program”, by including the help file onboard. Or could they? The Adobe “updater” runs from time to time, most of its “updates” are additions to the sales pitch. God knows, they’re not fixing any of the bugs.
So, adware, spyware, and DRM, is now the Adobe “tri-fecta”. If you want to live in relative privacy with a stable program, I suggest getting a hold of a copy of PSE-3, 4, or 5. Cheers. PSE 4 is sort of the dog of those 3. I ignored it, and went straight to PSE-5.
And no, they’re not behind, they’re 10 years ahead in customer annoyance.
But, I do think you’re wrong about not being able to maintain the “aspect ratio” of a photo. (In the top menu bar) Use “Image” > “Resize” > “Image Size”.
If “resample” is not checked, then whatever change you place in either the width or the height box, will change the other measurement. The image proportions are automatically “constrained”. If you must “resample” an image, then the “constrain proportions” box must be checked.
With the crop tool, to maintain aspect ratio, look just below the top menu bar, you will see “aspect ratio”, there you must select “use photo ratio” from the drop down menu.
At least I think that’s what you just asked.
