Adobe released a major update today for its Photoshop and Premiere Elements programs. They make it easier than ever for you to edit their photos and edit your photos.
While the updates aren’t revolutionary, they do make Photoshop and Premiere Elements one of the best simple media editing tools around.
Here’s what has been added in each program.
Photoshop Elements
Beginners can still use Photoshop Elements 13 without having to learn the complexities of Photoshop. The app still has three modes: Quick, Guided and Expert. Quick mode offers simple tweaks like brightness, color and a magic Smart Fix button.
The Guided view offers more in-depth editing features broken up into subcategories to make finding what you want to do easier. This view is great for photographers looking to do more advanced editing as it walks them through each step. Want to know how to cut a person out of one photo and put him in another? Photoshop Elements 13 will teach you how.
And of course, Expert view allows you to use the full power of Photoshop Elements without any guidance.
New to Photoshop Elements 13 is the ability to edit and upload your Facebook Cover Photo. This feature allows you to see how your profile picture will work with your Cover Photo so you can get creative with your profile. You can easily add text and stickers to your Cover Photo and upload your completed work directly to Facebook.
The only downside is that you’ll need to set the uploaded pictures as your Cover Photo and profile picture. Photoshop Elements does not have permission to change that for you in Facebook.
Cropping is now even easier with the update. Now the app can analyze your photo and offer a suggested crops. “Cropping is the number one thing people do with their photos,” said Adobe Product Manager for Photoshop Elements Bob Gager, so it’s nice to see the feature automated.
Another popular feature that’s been added is black & white effects and color isolation. You can turn any photo into gorgeous black & white. You can tweak the highlights and contrast until you’re satisfied with how the effect looks. With color isolation, you can make your photo black & white with color highlights around your subject. You can manually control which part of the photo you want color to show.
Photoshop’s refine selection brush is smarter than ever in this updated version but sometimes it still misses what you’re trying to select. Now you can add or subtract edge detection with a simple brush that you use to “push” and “pull” the edge detection one way or another. Gager showed off how edge detection failed to form around a person’s fingers but how easy it is to correct it with the new tool.
Last but not least, Adobe added an Elements Live feature where the company will curate news, articles and guides. The content will be a mix of Adobe created articles and guides from users. The Elements Live section is still pretty sparse in the demo version I tried, only offering a handful of guides and one news article. Obviously this will change as Adobe updates the app with more content.
Want to take your photos on the go? Photoshop Elements 13 integrates with Adobe’s Revel app (Android | iOS) so you can sync your photos to your phone.
Premiere Elements
For the film makers out there, Premiere Elements makes trimming down that long footage simpler than ever. Adobe shifted its philosophy of trimming “bad” footage from video to highlighting good footage. With the Favorite Moments feature, you can mark a moment that you want to include in the final version. When you’re done selection all your moments, Premiere Elements 13 will put them all together with your default transitions between each clip. You can cut down an hour of video in just minutes. You can of course fine tune your transitions and adjust the beginning and ends of each of your moments.
GoPro and other action camera users will we happy to see the enhanced Shake Stabilizer feature in Premiere Elements 13. The software smooths everything out, and makes it so your video looks like it was captured with a Steadicam. You can see the feature in action in the video below.
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The new Instant Movie feature automates editing your footage, which is perfect for beginners. The feature will sync music, titles and effects with your footage so everything just flows. If you want to make changes to the Instant Movie clip, you can do so with the full power of Premiere.
Both Photoshop and Premiere Elements will be available on Mac and PC in Q4 of 2014. Pricing remains the same, with each program costing $99 or $149 if you buy them as a bundle. You can upgrade from previous versions for $80 for each program or $120 to upgrade both.
If you want to try the programs before you buy them, you can download them below.
Download Adobe Photoshop Elements 13: Mac | Windows
Download Adobe Premiere Elements 13: Mac | Windows
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