It hasn’t been quite a full year since Adobe last released a new version of its consumer-centric image editor, Photoshop Elements. During this time, the company has worked hard to incorporate more code from its big brother, and the impressive results are available now.
The first thing you’ll notice about Photoshop Elements 11 is that it seems to be trading places with its big brother. Where Photoshop CS6 introduced a new, darker user interface seemingly borrowed from last year’s Elements 10, version 11 features an eye-pleasing light gray that’s generally brighter and more user-friendly, with larger icons that won’t strain the eyes.
While this move may be welcome for new buyers of Elements, veteran users will likely need to spend a little time getting acquainted with the UI. Thankfully, Photoshop Elements keeps the action centralized in one tabbed panel by default, offering three editing modes across the top: Quick, Guided, and Expert, each targeted at a different skill level.
Guided mode is new, presenting step-by-step assistance for novice users looking to utilize more advanced tools without needing to know about all of the magic going on behind the scenes. The mode is broken down into three categories: Touchups, including skin tone correction, cropping, and scratch removal; Photo Effects like Lomo or Tilt-Shift; and Photo Play for stacking images, creating Pop Art, or adding reflections.
With Elements 11, Expert mode truly becomes a powerful “lite” version of Photoshop CS6, offering familiar tools for Refine Edge, professional filters (now including Comic, Graphic Novel, and Pen & Ink), and enhancements to make combining elements from multiple photos a breeze.
Elements Organizer, also included with the companion Premiere Elements 11, makes managing photo libraries a breeze. It can show you complete folder hierarchies on your drive, and boasts a trio of new viewing modes. People, Places and Events are likely familiar to anyone graduating from iPhoto. People intelligently tags the faces of your friends, family and loved ones; Places shows where your photos were taken on Google Maps. In our tests, these additions worked faster and more effortlessly than in iPhoto. But unlike in iPhoto, the new Events view can’t automatically group images as they’re being imported--instead, Events have to be created after the fact.
Photoshop Elements 11 offers more ways to share your photos, with new templates for online albums and printed keepsakes, including calendars, scrapbook pages, and cards. Interactive online albums can be created quickly and posted to your website or Photoshop Showcase, but the choices tend to lean a bit toward the tacky side for our taste.
The bottom line. With each passing year, Photoshop Elements continues to feel like a more complete offering than iPhoto. Adobe has made the software even more appealing this year by combining powerful Photoshop CS6 features with, a slick, friendly new user interface. It’s well worth the extra money for frustrated iPhoto users looking to go beyond the basics.
of 5
Photoshop Elements 11.0
Multicore Intel processor, OS X 10.6 or later, 1024x768 display resolution, QuickTime 7 or higher, 1GB RAM, 4GB hard disk space
Brighter UI is friendlier to novice users. Many pro features carried over from Photoshop CS6. Guided edit mode makes complicated effects a snap.
Veteran users may need time to adjust to UI overhaul. No Retina Display support in initial release. Events can’t be created while importing photos.
