Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 2020

Adobe has just launched Photoshop Elements 2020 together with the video editor Premiere Elements 2020. More and more cameras and phones are now capable of capturing movies and as usual, purchasing both apps as a combo offers best value.

Upgrade pricing is available to those who own previous versions.

This version makes more use of artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning.

What’s New in Photoshop Elements

Select Subject auto­ selects the main subject(s) in an image with a single click.

Powered by advanced machine learning technology, Select Subject identifies a variety of objects in an image including people, pets, animals, vehicles, toys, and many more subjects.

Open an image in Expert or Quick mode and from the menu choose:

Select >> Subject

Or when using one of the individual selection tools, click the select subject button. The individual tools can be used to add/subtract from the auto-select or use the refine edge tool.

 

Performance Improvements

The Add Media dialog is used to add photos in the following workflows:

-Open-Closed Eyes (On clicking Organizer button)

-Photo Collage (On clicking Organizer button under 'Add Photo From')

-Hub (On clicking PSE's Try This card, when no image is open in PSE)

-Share service- Flickr (On clicking+ Button)

-Print (On clicking Add (+) Button)

In Photoshop Elements 2020, the following improvements have been made:

-Improved launch time: Earlier, it took lot of time to launch the add Photos dialog for larger catalogs and now it launches in approx. 80% less time.

A new loading images spinner appears while the images are getting loaded.

-Removed Add Selected Photos Button: Earlier, to add images from multiple sets (e.g. Album, people etc.) you had to select images from each set and click Add selected Photos button every time. Now you can select the photos corresponding to any source and after making selections from albums, people, events etc. you can simply click done.

Smooth Skin

A new feature to smooth skin has been added to this version. Smooth Skin enables you to smooth out face and skin texture to provide a more pleasing but realistic look.

A simple smoothness slider allows you to smooth the skin structure of the selected face.

To access Smooth Skin use the menu: Go to Enhance > Smooth Skin

Perfect Portrait – Revamp

The Perfect Portrait guided edit now gets the smooth skin button. This makes the feature more intuitive to use. In previous versions of PSE it was necessary to add blur and use the brush tool. This guided edit can now be started with a single click of the smooth skin button.

Smooth Skin works with WINDOWS OS version 1809 (Build 17763) or above and MAC OS version 10.13 and above.

Seethe new Perfect Portrait in Action on YouTube

 

 

Object Removal – New Guided Edit

 The Object Removal Guided Edit allows you to remove unwanted or additional objects in your photo with the help of content aware technology.

To use this feature open an image and go to:

Guided >> Basic (tab) >> Object Removal

From the right panel, choose one of the following Selection tools:

Brush - Use the Selection Brush tool to paint over the object you want to remove. You can adjust the size of the brush using the

Brush Size slider or square bracket keys.

Lasso - Use the Lasso tool to draw a free-form selection around the object that you want to remove.

Auto - Use the Auto Selection tool to automatically create a selection when you draw a shape around the object you want to remove.

Quick – Use the Quick selection tool to make a selection based on edges when you click or click-drag the object you want to remove.  

After making your selection, click the Remove Object button. 

See my YouTube video for examples:

Object Removal Tutorial

Pattern Brush – New Guided Edit

Photoshop Elements 2020 introduces to you a new guided edit "Pattern Brush". This Guided Edit allows you to add patterns to your photo to create an artistic look. Select Subject is internally used with the protect subject option in this Guided Edit.

To Access Pattern Brush:

-Open any photo and switch to the Guided mode.

-Navigate to the Pattern Brush under the Fun Edits category.

See my YouTube video demo

Automatically Colorize a Photo

Open a photo in Photoshop Elements and from the menu choose:

Enhance >> Colorize Photo

Clicking on one of the generated thumbnails will instantly color the Photo. I’ve found that the top thumbnail usually gives a pleasing result but choosing one of the other three will give a result with more contrast, if preferred. Switching to the manual mode enables the selection and colorization of specific areas. This is achieved by adding a droplet to a selection and choosing a color from the swatch. Note that Elements is not simply painting pixels but intelligently blending with the original photo and texture.

See my YouTube Video Demo

 

 

Other Changes

More auto-creations will get generated featuring the new enhancements. These can be viewed from the (Hub) Home Screen and saved as new images or projects. 

The Hub also features more in-app learning. Simply click on one of the cards where you see “Try This” 

HEIC & HEVC files are now supported on Windows.

What’s New in Premiere Elements

Reduce Noise – lets you clean up artifacts seen in video clips shot in low light conditions.

Fill Frame – will be useful where videos are captured in portrait mode (vertical) on cell phones. The usual black bars are aesthetically replaced with some animation and blurring making them look more polished when uploaded to social media.

Time Lapse Video – a new guided edit.

Animated Sky – lets you turn a still image into a short clip by adding a video of clouds or a sunset while retaining the foreground of the original photo. See the results at YouTube.

Quick Look Animated Sky

 

 

Organizer enhancements include smart tagging for video files and face recognition for clips.