New Software Spotlight: Adobe Elements Family 2018

Adobe Elements Family 2018 is the latest Elements product bundle. Included is Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 and Adobe Premiere Elements 2018. Both are scaled-down versions of their professional counterparts, including key elements of each product while ensuring that the photo and/or video enthusiast doesn’t have to be burdened with a lot additional functionality that they may never need. The purchase price for the Adobe Elements Family 2018 bundle is $149.99.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018

Photoshop is considered by many to be the best image editor on the planet, but for the general consumer it may be too big and bulky to manage home photo projects, for a couple of reasons. First, for most people Photoshop comes with a steep learning curve; it can take months, even years to become accomplished. Second, as a high-end product it comes with a high-end price. You can check out what you need to run Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 from its tech specs page.

So what is new with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018?

• Auto Curate now lets you curate your images based on faces, quality of image, Smart Tags, subjects, and more. You don’t have to search for the best of your images to use in your photographic creations.

• Background Replace gives you the ability to replace a photo’s background. This can be very useful when you love a photographic image of a person, but not the location where it was shot. You can use your own photo background or one of the several that come with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018.

• Artistic overlays let you create fancy overlays such as shapes that you can put on your photo to turn it into a crafted photo.

• Create Watercolors provides the tools to take a photo and give it that watercolor look, for additional artistic choices.

• Create double exposures using the guided edits and the application will show you how to merge two images into one.

• Auto Selection is a new tool that allows you to draw a box (or a lasso, ellipse, or polygon lasso) and it will automatically try to select the object(s) you’re lassoing. You can refine the selection as well.

• Open closed eyes by taking the open eyes from one photo and matching them to one where the eyes are closed. That way you can use that perfect shot even if the subject blinked when you took the picture.

• Slideshows re-done: Now a one-click method where your best photos and videos are automatically brought together with short video segments to create customizable slideshows.

• Enhanced guided edits add more guided edits to create and edit your photos. Now with the 49 guided edits, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 will walk you through each step.

Adobe Premiere Elements 2018

Adobe Premiere Elements 2018 is the latest release of the consumer-aimed video editing program from Adobe. It is a scaled-down version of the professional level package Premiere Pro without the steep learning curve, but it still provides a lot of power for the creation of personal videos.

Like Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements is a lot easier to work with than its pro counterpart and a lot more manageable, and while it has fewer features than Premiere Pro, the features that it does have will better serve the general consumer. To see what you need to run Adobe Premiere Elements 2018 visit the requirements page.

So what is new with Adobe Premiere Elements 2018?

• Freeze frames lets you stop the motion in a video and then add creative motion titles.

• Bounce-back effect gives you the ability to make a segment of your video run forward and then back. You can do this repetitively and then export it as an animated GIF or a short video clip.

• Fix action cam footage shows you how to trim your video, correct for lens distortion, fix the color, etc. to create the best video possible.

• Animated social posts can be created: Take a video and enhance it with static or animated text.

• Candid moments can now be extracted from your videos. That way you never miss that special moment.

• Smart Trim will automatically trim out the bad portions and keep the good. It also brings the best scenes together based on the style of your video.

• Enhanced guided edits add more guided edits to create and edit your photos. Now with the 18 guided edits, Adobe Photoshop Premiere 2018 will walk you through each step.

Adobe Elements Family 2018

Adobe Elements Family 2018 is the common element to both systems. When the system is purchased as a bundle you can interact between them, adding photos to video and taking advantage of other shared features. The areas that have been updated are as follows.

• Enhanced organization from all over your computer using smart tags, faces, places, and subjects like animals, sunsets, etc. You can then search on those things to find exactly what you want. You can also do quick fixes right in the organizer. Auto curate will also pick out the best ones so you can have them right at hand.

• Enhanced create and share lets you create slideshows, collages, and calendars among other things. You can also share directly to your social media sites.

Adobe Photoshop Elements continues as a great platform for consumer photo editing. Enhancements in selection capabilities, especially the auto selection, opening closed eyes, and replacing backgrounds, make for a nice upgrade to Photoshop Elements.

Adobe Premiere Elements also has a few nice features, including the Smart Trim, Candid Moments, and bounce back effects. The additional Guided Edits make this a better product. I think that the Adobe Elements Family 2018 bundle makes for a great upgrade and, if you are new to the photo/video editing scene, a very good entry point.