Adobe has announced the release of Photoshop Elements 9, its consumer photo-editing software.
The new version adopts a powerful new technology from its big brother, Photoshop CS5, and provides new tools for organising images.
Adapted from Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill feature, the content intelligence in the Spot Healing Brush analyses what’s in the image and quickly de-clutters or repairs photos — such as unwanted bystanders or obstructions — with a swipe of a brush, automatically filling in the background. The same content intelligence can also synthesise missing pixel information to create a panorama from multiple photos without leaving any gaps or blank spaces.
The new Photomerge Style Match is designed to bring life to drab photos by analysing characteristics such as contrast or colour tone in one chosen photo and then automatically applying those qualities to another photo. In addition, several new Guided Edit options provide step-by-step instructions for achieving effects such as Out of Bounds — making an element of a photo appear to leap off the page in 3D — pop art or perfect portraits. And in another borrowing from full Photoshop, Elements now provides to Layer Masks to enable more complex edits and compositions.
The Photoshop Elements Organizer provides tools for managing and viewing images and include auto-Analyzer to automatically assign tags based on qualities such as lighting, focus or contrast and People Recognition, Adobe’s equivalent of iPhoto’s face recognition.
Photoshop Elements 9 requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X10.5.8 or later for a suggested retail price of £77. The software is also available in a £117 bundle with the new Premiere Elements 9.
UPDATE: The Plus service is only available in the US.
