Have you seen the new features in Adobe Photoshop Elements 8? There are some pretty cool things they’ve added that will help you make your photos just what you want with less effort. One of the things I love about Photoshop Elements (verses the full version of Photoshop) is that it’s target use and audience is for touching up photos easily and quickly. There’s no need to be a Photoshop guru to use Elements because it’s made easy for the end user with presets, menus, and these fabulous new features:
Have you ever noticed that you tend to want to make the same type of fixes to your photos all the time? They’ve done a good job with the red-eye function, and now there are new shortcuts that help you do things like whiten teeth to make your photos even better. Who needs a trip to the dentist when you’ve got Elements 8!
What about getting the right lighting on shots? Sometimes (especially at night) it’s tricky to get all the parts of a photo right. Like standing in front of a lit building. The building has different needs from the camera than your subjects do. With Elements 8, you can take a couple of photos with the right lighting (i.e. flash) for the foreground and the background, and then combine the photos easily within Elements for a photo where everything’s lit correctly.
While we’re on the subject of combining photos, don’t you hate it when you go to take a photo of something and someone walks into your photo just as you snap it? I’m specifically thinking of famous monuments or other touristy places that seem to be continuously filled with people. You wait for one person to leave the shot only for another person to step in in another area. Time to combine photos! Elements 8 will allow you to take two similar photos (with distractions in two different areas) and combine them to create one photo without the distractions. Goodbye Hawaiian shirt guy!
One more cool feature (although there are many more) is that you can combine group shots to get the best shot possible–no more toddler tantrums or closed eyes to mess up the photo. All you have to do is shoot a series of shots, then use Elements 8 to combine the best parts for a fabulous group shot that people will think took you hours in front of the camera to capture.
If you were curious about the differences in Elements 8, hopefully this brief overview will help you see some of the cool new features. And if you want to try them out, you can download a free 30-day trial and play with these options yourself!
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