Adobe Elements 9

Elements 9, Adobe’s entry level image editing package, has had its yearly upgrade, but is it worth your cash?

Launched 12 months almost to the day from its predecessor, the big task for Elements 9 will be convincing existing users that it boasts enough new features to justify an upgrade, but for those new to image editing though, let’s recap.
Adobe Photoshop Elements offers an affordable and accessible first step into the world of digital manipulation, compared to its bigger brother, Photoshop Creative Suite (now on its fifth incarnation of CS5). Elements 9 continues this trend, with a range of beginner-friendly options split into three main areas – Edit, Create, and Share. Dig beneath the simplified veneer though, and you’ll find a very powerful and adaptable piece of software, which now shares many features with the CS series. This ‘headroom’ as Adobe calls it – the ability to make automatic enhancements when new to the software, but also apply more complex manual adjustments – is central to Elements’ appeal and neatly encapsulated in several of its new features.

So, what’s new in Elements 9?
Under the main Edit menu, there are several new Guided Edit options – 27 against 21 in the previous version – and these now include some popular imaging effects grouped under Fun Edits, such as Lomo Camera Effect, Out Of Bounds, Pop Art and Reflection. These work by splitting each technique into stages, so they’re easy to achieve, but it’s interesting to note that, once complete, you can move back into the Full Edit mode and any Layers or Masks used are retained, allowing you to fine-tune the effect manually, or just learn how the picture was put together. This is of more use on some techniques than others though, as oddly, many don’t use Adjustment Layers.

Layer Masks
For the first time, Layers Masks have made it into Elements and this is brilliant news. Previously only in the full version of Photoshop, Layer Masks are one of the most useful tools the software has to offer, allowing you to make precise and flexible adjustments to the visibility of a Layer. Unlike other tools that’ve made the jump into Elements, such as Curves, they work just as well as in CS, so you can say goodbye to dodgy plug-ins, clunky workarounds or frustrating use of the Eraser tool from now on.
The Photomerge options have also come in for an update, particularly Panorama, which features new Spherical and Collage options as well as Vignette Removal and Geometric Distortion Correction. There’s an additional option called Style Match, where you can apply the general style of another pic to the one you’re working on. We found success for the latter to be dependent on the image, but the Panorama functions are good.
Elements 9 borrows some of the Content Aware Fill functions from Photoshop CS5, and the main application of this is via the Spot Healing Brush. When painted over parts of an image you want to remove or fill, this attempts to fill the area and create a seamless blend. It works pretty well on simple textures – removing a football from a patch of grass for instance – but typically struggles as surfaces become more complex or the object larger. Of more use, the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush tools now feature a handy preview of the sampled area, similar to CS5, which helps enormously when cloning and healing tricky areas. Also aping its big brother are additional Selection Previews within the Refine Edge palette, that make it easier to judge how Feathering is being applied to your image.
On the downside, no new features have been added to the Camera Raw interface, which still only features the Basic and Detail tabs, though it does come preloaded with Camera Raw 6.1, so it’s compatible with all but the most recent D-SLRs straight out of the box.
Many of the other new features revolve around the ability to share your shots online, and use your pictures more creatively, so there are now upload options for Facebook and Flickr, automatically resizing your pictures prior to uploading.
Improvements have also been made to the Elements Organizer, which is available to Mac users for the first time, and many simple edits as well as sharing options can be used directly from it. The new Organizer is a powerful tool and a great way to catalogue your images so long as you’re fastidious enough to import and tag them. The only thing missing is a traditional loupe view like the one in Lightroom and Bridge. Viewing improves in the Fullscreen mode, but it’s no substitute for an intuitive 100% loupe preview when you want to check sharpness or fine detail.

Interface & Performance 
The first thing you’ll notice on loading Elements 9 is that, on the surface, nothing much has changed. Aside from a slight shift in the tone of the grey background and fewer coloured tabs, you could be looking at Elements 8. That’s no bad thing though, as a neutrally toned background is important when making colour and contrast adjustments, while the loss of the coloured buttons makes the interface look less cluttered. There’s no option to change this as there was in Elements 8, but a larger font has also been used throughout and its simple, hard black drop shadow makes it a lot more readable than before.
Performance-wise there are absolutely no complaints. On our Intel Core 2 Duo PC (2.66GHz and 2GB RAM, running Windows 7) installation took a little under 8 minutes and a 200MB PSD file opened in just under 10 seconds. The most important aspect is that adjustments continue to be made in real-time with none of the lag that would ruin the intuitive experience.

Value & Verdict
It has to be said that Photoshop Elements 9 offers a quite incredible amount of imaging bang for your buck and for 4 out of 5 tasks it’s the equal of Photoshop CS5. It’s still the best entry-level image-editing package around, combining an extensive set of creative features at a very affordable price.



At a glance
Photoshop Elements 9: £77
Upgrade Price:  from £67
(see adobe.com/uk for more details)

Minimum Spec (Windows)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP (SP2), Windows Vista,
or Windows 7
Processor: 2GHz or faster
Memory: 1GB of RAM
Hard Disk: 7GB of available hard
disk space
Display: 1024x768 colour monitor with 16-bit colour video card
Other Requirements: Microsoft DirectX or 10 compatible sound and display driver; Graphics card with latest updated drivers; DVD-ROM drive

Minimum Spec (Mac)
Operating System: Mac OS X v10.5.8 (or newer) or Mac OS X v10.6
(or newer)
Processor:  Multicore Intel processor
Memory:  2GB of RAM
Hard Disk: 7GB of available space
Display: 1024x768 colour monitor with 16-bit colour video card
Other Requirements: Graphics
card with latest updated drivers; DVD-ROM drive

www.adobe.com/uk

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