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Photoshop Elements 8

The new elements offers photographers fast, intelligent organization, cool correction tools and new ways to share

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Tags are keywords that you apply to photos to help speed image searches. The Tag Cloud shows you all of your tags at a glance; the tags you’ve used more often are larger than those used more rarely.

EDITING
Full-Screen Quick Edit. Numerous refinements to Elements 8 make image editing quicker and more efficient. Elements has had full-screen image viewing before, and it now can be used for video, as well. In this version, however, Adobe also has added a Quick Edit panel to full-screen viewing with one-click fixes, like rotation of an image, auto color adjustments, auto levels, auto contrast, red-eye fixing, auto tonal-range adjustment and more.

Share your latest photos in creative ways using Photoshop Elements and Photoshop.com. Choose from a variety of fun templates. 2 GB of online storage is provided for free, and you can upgrade to more storage if you need it. You also can easily upload projects to your own website from within Photoshop Elements 8 using FTP.

Photomerge Exposure. In previous Photoshop Elements versions, there were a few different Photomerge modes for combining groups of images into one perfect shot, like Photomerge Group Shot for combining shots with more than one person and Photomerge Scene Cleaner for removing distracting background objects. In Elements 8, the new Photomerge Exposure tool quickly and automatically combines multiple exposures of a scene into one perfect exposure. By using a flash in an image, for instance, the foreground and any close-up subjects will be well illuminated, but the background will be woefully underexposed. If you meter a long exposure for the background, especially in a darker scene, then the foreground subject often will be incorrectly exposed. By taking the two images, analyzing the points present in both images and then aligning them, Photomerge Exposure combines the exposures into one image with optimum range from shadows to highlights. Photomerge Exposure works with up to 10 images, and there are controls and tools for tweaking the scene for perfection.

Recompose Photo. The Recompose Photo feature inherits a hand-me-down from Photoshop CS4’s Content-Aware Scale feature. Photos can be resized automatically without distortion to the main subjects. Backgrounds can be squeezed together or stretched while your designated subjects stay the same size, and subjects with space in between them can be pushed together or farther apart. A group shot with a lone individual on the side, for instance, can be fixed and cropped into one image while also subtracting distracting negative space. The Protect Tool and Remove Brush are used to paint in the areas of your photo that you’d like untouched or removed.

Need to adjust color and tonality in one part of the image without affecting the rest? Photoshop Elements 8 makes it easy to quickly create selections and adjust lighting, color and more with simple slider controls.

SHARING
Elements 8 also includes new ideas for sharing images. In the Share Tab, there are a lot of presets for outputting images, including e-mail attachments, CD and DVD burning, optimization for mobile devices and phones and, of course, online via preset albums on Photoshop.com or even to other websites through the Export to FTP option. There are quite a few new and fast templates in which photos and videos can be saved, with transitions and effects, including Fade In/Out, Pan and Zoom, and 3D Pixelate.

The program includes 2 GB of archi-val online storage, and if that’s not enough, Elements 8 Plus (only available for Windows) extends that number to 20 GB for an annual fee of $49. Elements 8 Plus also includes regularly released tutorials and seasonal-themed artwork and templates for fun customization of your images during the holidays.

Photoshop Elements 8 is available for both Mac and Windows at a list price of $99. A Windows bundle of Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8 for video editing is available at $149. Elements 8 purchasers can choose to upgrade at any time to Elements 8 Plus for the $49 annual fee. Contact: Adobe, (800) 833-6687, www.adobe.com.

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