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Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021 adds new portrait features and moving photos

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021 and Premiere Elements 2021 offer new AI-based tools for photography and video enthusiasts.

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Managing Editor Alison DeNisco Rayome joined CNET in 2019, and is a member of the Home team. She is a co-lead of the CNET Tips and We Do the Math series, and manages the Home Tips series, testing out new hacks for cooking, cleaning and tinkering with all of the gadgets and appliances in your house. Alison was previously an editor at TechRepublic.
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Alison DeNisco Rayome
2 min read
landscape

Adobe Photoshop Essentials adds a new landscape photography editing tool in its 2021 edition.

Adobe

Adobe is releasing the 2021 versions of its Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements software for editing photos and videos, respectively, the company said Thursday. The new apps use AI to help you easily edit, create, organize and share your photos and videos. 

The Elements line offers less expensive versions of Photoshop and Premiere with fewer features, but more than enough for photography and video hobbyists. The software works on Windows and MacOS.

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Photoshop Elements 2021 uses Adobe's AI technology Sensei to add motion to static images with Moving Photos, allowing you to create animated GIFs with 2D and 3D camera motion. An Adjust Face Tilt feature lets you automatically adjust the position of a person's face in a portrait or group photo (so no more closed eyes in a group shot). And with Quote Graphics, you can overlay customizable text or animation over your photos. 

Premiere Elements 2021 includes new features like Select Object, which lets you choose an object or area within your video and apply an effect that tracks throughout the video. You'll find 21 new music tracks to add into your project. And the addition of GPU Accelerated Performance will let you see high-quality playback of any effects you add without rendering first, and allow faster video cropping. 

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The Photoshop Elements Adjust Face Tilt feature in action.

Adobe

Both apps include five new Guided Edits, which offer follow-along steps to help you get the photo or video results you're looking for. In Photoshop Elements, new Guided Edits include those for duotones, landscapes, as well as moving, scaling and duplicating objects. In Premiere Elements, you'll find those for double exposure videos and animated matte overlays. There are now 83 Guided Edits available across both apps. 

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Both apps also added automatic backup of catalog structure, so you can more easily back up and keep track of your photo and video library by albums, keyword tags, people, places and events.

Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements will cost $100 each, or $150 for both. In comparison, Photoshop and Premiere Pro cost $21 a month each (or about $240 a year each paid upfront). 

For more, check out our guide to phone photography, how to take long exposure photos with your iPhone camera and how to get Windows Photo Viewer back in Windows 10.

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