About the App
Adobe Photoshop Elements brings much of the visual magic to non-professional users like beginners or people who want to edit images without going into the concepts.
The new 2020 version has some awesome features like:
- Firstly, Auto-colourisation
- One-click subject selection
- Automatic skin smoothing
- Object removal
What’s unique is that you can also order photo prints and gifts directly from the program. Many new features take advantage of Sensei (Adobe’s AI technology).
With every version update, you get new Guided Edits. It brings the tutorial of those step-by-step effects. Adobe’s consumer photo editing software continues to make splashy Photoshop effects possible for novices as well as professionals.
Unlike Adobe Photoshop, it doesn’t require a subscription, while still providing many of that program’s amazing tools.
Major Features
To get started, you must log in through Adobe ID. In the following section, we would be looking at some quick rundown of the major new features in the 2020 version:
- Select Subject- This timesaving feature is available in Photoshop for iPad. It’s stunning how the tool uses its AI to determine a photo’s subject automatically.
- Automatic Colourization– It does not only convert a black-and-white photo into a color one but also you can play around by substituting or enhancing colors of any image.
- More Auto-Creations, This tool appears in the Welcome window. It includes Pattern Brush, B&W Selection, Painterly, and Depth of Field effects.
- Object Removal. This tool has appeared in many photo editing software. It’s not surprising that it is in Elements now. You can already approximate this tool’s usage. Its Guided Edit makes easy work of the process.
- Smooth Skin, This one-click tool is intended to cure all the blemishes on your face in one fell swoop.
- Pattern Objects It allows you to add stars, hearts, and other elements to your digital photos. It sounds cheesy but is kind of fun.
- Printing. You can now order photo prints and photo gifts directly from within Photoshop Elements.
- HEIF Support. Elements finally support it on Windows. It was already there for macOS.
For a refresher, here are some notable updates that have appeared in recent version updates:
- New Start Screen. This shows editing ideas, recent files, and Auto Creations.
- Additional Guided Edits. You get step-by-step instructions for creating memes, multi-photo text, partial-image sketches, watercolors, shape overlays, background replacements, double exposures, and borders. In a few words, a full-packed tutorial!
- Redesigned College Tool. The renovated tool offers attractive templates for innovative designs.
- Improved Performance. Adobe claims a faster installation process and improved performance on common photo-editing tasks.
- Auto Curate. This Organiser option uses AI to find the best shots in your collection.
- Open Closed Eyes. This feature can fix a shot where one person has closed eyes. It is of great help and something which you wouldn’t find in other software.
Auto Creations
After importing about some hundred photos and video clips, the home screen shows you more than a dozen Auto Creations which you had produced from your content.
From photos shot around the same area and time, it produces pleasant collages after a bit of editing and photo swapping. This feature also produces several slideshows of varying interest from your test media. It also has effective transitions and backgrounds.
The recommended background music is usually well-chosen to fit the image subjects. One drawback, it stops abruptly rather than fading out. Some transitions are so short as to be pointless. In any case, the project can provide starting points for your creativity.
Elements still lack one feature that’s offered by Apple Photos, Google Photos, and Windows Photos, and many other photo editing software provide – automatic album creations.
Those products group photos from locations and periods and automatically suggest albums. Though these don’t always hit the mark, they can be a good way to get you started with albums.
Adjusting Photos
Photoshop Elements becomes completely different when you move from the Organizer to its full editor app. The program maintains many of Photoshop’s high-end image manipulation capabilities. What’s different is its degree of difficulty. Adobe Elements is much easier than Photoshop or Lightroom.
Many of the tools, particularly content-aware ones that let you do things like removing areas or objects without disrupting the background, are unique to Adobe software.
Elements Effects feel like Instagram squared, with the control that the mobile app simply can’t match. And the Smart Looks tool recommends an effect based on image analysis through its AI. It comes in four varieties.
The Quick mode’s FX option offers four variations on the standard Vintage, Cross Process, and Toy Camera options. There are seven other modes. This tool shows your actual image under the influence of any effect, rather than just a sample image. It helps you to judge the effect easily.
When you choose the crop tool, you see four proposed crops in the bottom panel, based on faces found and other criteria. AI AI everywhere!
It works impressively! It can frame-group photos and suggest creative looks for landscapes. The crop tool is suitable for many professional users, letting you specify standard aspect ratios and even a target size in pixels ( Something you wouldn’t find in other editing software).
Expert mode offers a Photoshop level of control, complete with filters, layers, actions (the ability to run preset Actions like resizing and effects, not to create them), histograms, and tons of artistic and graphic effects.
As with the interface of Photoshop, you get an array of tool buttons along the left, and edited files are saved in PSD format.
Comic, Graphic Novel, and Pen & Ink are among some of the more noteworthy filters you can apply to your images. These don’t appear in the Filter Gallery at first but you can choose it from the Filter menu directly.
That said, they can produce some truly amazing effects!
Expert Mode also has a generous selection of content, such as backgrounds, frames, and shapes to spice up a photograph. The Text tool also allows you to wrap text around a shape. It ensures that the text doesn’t overlap important parts of an image. Character-styling options are far less extensive than those in Photoshop.
‘Select Subject’ is a new tool introduced in 2020. It’s simply a button that appears at the bottom panel while using the selection brush. It’s also available from the Select menu. It works admirably on all except photos where backgrounds are blended in with the subject using similar colors.
The Recompose tool is one of the program’s most impressive: It allows you to change the default aspect ratio of an image without stretching or squashing faces. You can even remove selected objects and mark others for preserving.
Recompose tool did a pretty good job of moving a subject’s big head closer to his friend without distorting the test picture.
You can also do standard Photoshop things, such as blur, sharpen, and add imagery. There’s a good selection of clipart, too!
The spot-healing brush does an excellent job of removing blemishes. You can also remove objects like a sign in the background of a photo by brushing in the texture with the help of a healing brush.
When you open a RAW file from a DSLR or high-end mirrorless camera, the program starts in a separate Adobe Camera Raw window, where you have access to color, exposure, and detail, and other crucial controls.
It does include Adobe’s RAW Profiles such as Colour, Portrait, and Vivid, along with features like noise reduction. About drawback, Elements has no chromatic aberration correction. There are also lens distortion corrections, but they don’t use profiles to base automatic corrections on your equipment the way advanced software does. The RAW importer has a red-eye reduction and cropping tool. This feature seems unnecessary provided it is already there in the main editor software.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this amazing photo editing is perfectly suitable for amateurs who want to get creative with their photos. Adobe Photoshop Elements is still the best game in town.
Professionals, of course, can bring the best out of it and more with Photoshop CC, but that comes with a high learning curve and recurring price tag, which you need to go through if you are a professional.
Elements make doing a lot of the coolest Photoshop effects accessible to people. Competitors can’t match Elements’ array of photo effects, organizational tools, and sharing and output options. You may go through our articles and find out more about which photo editing software suits you the best!
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Happy Editing!