Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 is proof that -- as the Irish saying goes -- the older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune. Now that the world’s most popular consumer photo editing software ships has launched, users will find all of Elements’ user-friendly tools intact with some killer new features and enhancements.

Browsing the list of Elements’ new elements, if you will, I was most excited to test a feature allowing users to “add curving text that automatically flows around shapes, objects or custom paths.” Whenever I’ve wanted to do something like that in the past, I’ve typically done it by hand with my ol’ Wacom tablet -- awesome in some respects, but not if you’d rather employ typeface than your handwriting.

Using the “Text on Custom Path Tool”

I opened a photo of a German Shepherd I met in Bavaria, drew a wavy line next to her, clicked the “check” on my toolbar to okay the line, and then began typing a quote from Mark Twain. Ridiculously easy -- so easy a cave man can do it. I experimented with some shapes, too, and that was easier still: as simple as clicking your shape onto the screen, sizing it accordingly, and typing away.

Mark Twain was a wise man.

The other new feature I was super-geeked up to try? Object Search, which is exactly what it sounds like: a content-based image search tool that peruses your photo library and identifies similar objects (facial recognition software is so 1995).

Framing my pup’s head to see how Elements 10 would fare in finding similar objects.

Sticking with the German Shepherd theme for my test, I selected a photo of my own beloved pup to see what the software would turn up in a search. Similar photos featuring my dog appeared, but so did, among manifold other irrelevant photos, a plate of barbecued chicken drumsticks and an accordion player (at least Elements 10 nailed the German thing with the accordion player).

Disappointing results, I wonder why barbecued chicken (bottom left) appears in a search for my dog.

A little disappointed, I navigated to a “Refine Search” icon and manipulated its slider hoping that that the search algorithm would include more of the “Shape” of my dog, rather than focussing on the “Color” -- which is another way of saying that I guess my dog is colored like barbecued chicken. Curiously, the accordion player still popped up, but overall, the results dramatically improved: I saw every German Shepherd in my photo library and even some photos of a statue from outside the German Shepherd Kennel Club in Augsburg, Germany.

A refined “Object Search” proves worthy, but what gives with the accordion player?

All things considered, “Object Search” proved a super-sweet tool that I’m looking forward playing with more.

The refined Object Search for my dog turns up this German Shepherd statue.

Facebook fiends will be thrilled to know that another of Elements’ newest perquisites enables you to “use your Facebook friends list to quickly tag faces in your photos and easily share them on Facebook from within the Elements Organizer.” In other words, all those hours you’ve spent manually tagging folks in Facebook will pay off in the form of automatically tagging those same people in your Elements files after you next shoot them. Again, ridiculously easy.

Got an iPhone video of your favorite singer-songwriter performing in the mountains? Uploading to YouTube is just a click away.

Among further fresh features and enhancements are easy sharing with YouTube, augmented area paint-on effects, and composition crop guides. Look for a complete review of Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 10 in the next issue of Mac|Life.