Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The most obvious change made by Adobe to Photoshop Elements is eliminating the numbered versions. It appears that Elements 15 issued a year ago will be the last numbered version and that starting this year each version will be identified by the year for which it is published. The most significant changes in the new version are in the Organizer. I don't use it because I use several different photo editors, but those who do use it should be pleased by changes that make it easier for them to find photos on their computer, group the photos in a variety of ways, process the photos for editing, and send them very quickly to social media. You can even do basic editing without leaving the organizer and automatically make a slide show. But someone else will have to review the Organizer. Adobe's reasoning for upgrading Organizer seems to be that nowadays most people carry a cell phone with a camera, filling their computers with many more photos than when their only option was a camera. So it is trying to help users to manage all those photos and to get them ready to send to friends, family and social media very quickly. Regarding photo editing: A. If you work primarily in the Expert mode, there are two noteworthy additions: 1. Open Closed Eyes. Often times when you look at your photos you see someone has their eyes closed, this is especially true of group photos. With this new version, you can now open them by taking the open eyes from another photo and putting them in place of the closed eyes. The open eyes do not have to be of the same person. You may have to play around with this a little bit to get the right eyes, but when your done the eyes of everyone in the photo will be open. Open Closed Eyes is found under Enhance in the Expert mode. 2. Auto Selection Tool. Added to the selection tools in the tool box in the Expert Mode. This tool does quite a good job of helping you isolate an object, a person, even two people, so that they can be moved to another photo or become the basis for a new photo. This tool is also added to the Quick Edit mode but not to the Guided Edit. In the Expert mode it is grouped with the other selection tools at the top of the tool bar. B. Four new options have been added to the Guided Mode. All are easy to use because clear step-by-step directions are given for the new tools just as they are for the other tools. 1. Double Exposure. Superimpose two photos. For example, when testing this tool I superimposed a very cloudy sky over the head and upper body of a friend so it looked as though she were in the sky, or at least had her head in the clouds. Located in the “Fun” edits 2. Shape Overlay. You can select from more then 50 different shapes, put them on top of a photo and adjust their size, shape and position on the photo. Shapes include a wide variety, not just hearts, triangles, circles and squares. Located in the “Fun” edits. 3. Watercolor Effect. You can change your photo into a water color image. However, this one is more limited than the others in that though you can work with your own photos, you are given only 3 water color options (none of which I particularly cared for) and you must use one of them. It is located in “Special” edits If you are really interested in turning photos into water colors, there are add-ons for Photoshop Elements that you can find on the internet that will give you a lot more options and creative control. However, before doing that, switch to the "Expert" mode and click on "Filter" on the black line that runs along the top. When those drop down lists open, check out "Artistic" and "Sketch" and see if any of them are of interest to you. 4. Replace Background. This makes it easy to take a person or object from one photo and put it on another, thus completely changing the background. It is located in "Special" edits. Do I think it is worth buying? Definitely if you use the Organizer. Between what appear to me to be significant improvements to the Organizer plus the additions to the Guide and Expert modes, the 2018 version of Photoshop Elements will definitely be a step up If you are using Guided or Expert, don’t use Organizer, and already have Photoshop Elements 15, unless the additions I've told you about really excite you, you may want to wait to see what more is added in the 2019 version before upgrading. If you have a version older than Elements 15, then I would say it is time to consider upgrading, especially if you do a lot of your work in the Guided mode. It interests me to see how much emphasis Adobe is giving to the Guide Edits this year as well as last year. You can now pretty much do everything in the Guided mode you can do in the Expert mode, but with much of the heavy lifting done for you. I have always sort of looked down my nose at the Guided mode, feeling a bit superior because I was using only the Expert mode. But when testing version 2018 I had fun playing around with the new tools in Guided, as well as some introduced last year. So I think that I will be make more use of Guided in the future, finishing up in Expert.