Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 - Review

30 days ago I downloaded the free thirty day trial of Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 12.

Let’s talk about that.

 
At first I was a little intimidated by it, Elements 12 looks completely different to 10. But once I start to poke around I found that quite a few things are in the same place. Some things though, like the panorama stitching tool are in a completely different menu.
In spite of the changes it didn’t take me long to get comfortable with the new interface.
 Elements 12 has three basic modes represented as tabs at the top of the screen, Quick, Guided, and Expert. Each mode has a different level complexity, with Quick being the simplest and Expert being the most advanced (funny how that works).
Because of my level and knowledge of the software I found that Quick mode was too simple. Since I liked having more control I spent 99.99999999999999% of my time switching between Guided and Expert.
In Guided there are many preset effects and filters that you can add to your image. It’s easy to make an image black and white, or tweak the colours.

In Expert mode you can do so much more! Add a person to a photo:

Or give someone elf ears:

My favourite tool would probably be the burn tool. It’s just so handy!

I think Elements 12 could be equally useful to the quick snapper, and serious photographers alike.
With all this in mind I think Element’s price tag of $100 is justified.

All in all I really enjoyed my trial with elements 12. I get the distinct feeling that I’ve only scratched the surface of what you can do with Adobe Photoshop Elements 12. If I had the money, I’d definitely buy it!

P.S. My birthday is coming ;)