Adobe Photoshop Elements 14

Your smartphone photos and videos are about to get a major upgrade, thanks to Adobe.

The software giant this week released new versions of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, its more affordable counterparts to Photoshop and Elements aimed at hobbyists and consumers. The new Elements 14 software uses “content intelligence, automated features and a friendly interface to help you effortlessly turn your quick snapshots and video clips into amazing photos and movies,” Adobe’s Bob Gager wrote in a blog post.

The company revamped the Elements Organizer to make it easier to find the photos and videos you want to edit. The People view should recognize faces better and now stacks your photos by person during import, simplifying the process of tracking them down later. Adobe also enhanced the Places view, so you can assign locations to your photos and videos and view them on a map, as well as the Events View, which now clusters media by date range.

Meanwhile, Photoshop Elements 14 is getting a new Shake Reduction feature, which Adobe called “your selfies’ best friend,” letting you simply click to remove any blurs from unsteady hands. There’s also a new Haze Remover to help you sharpen up backgrounds.

Other new Photoshop Elements features include: step-by-step help for adding motion blurs and resizing photos, a new Fine Detail Selection option that lets you paint loosely over things like hair and pet fur, and Smart Looks for automated editing. Smart Looks will analyze the subject, color, and lighting of your photos and give you five edits that “fit perfectly,” Adobe said.

As for Premiere Elements 14, the revamped software boasts new motion titles; a new guided edit feature for Color Pop, which lets you pop one color in a scene and make everything else black and white; step-by-step help for creating slow-motion effects; and support for 4K Ultra HD content. In addition, Adobe moved all the audio features together in one place.

“Since you always have your smartphone or tablet with you, you’re probably taking more photos and videos than ever before,” Adobe’s Gager wrote. “It’s great that you can easily capture these moments, but … you don’t want to have to worry about things like lighting, composition and trying to get the perfect shot or video. We built this version with the goal of helping you stay in the moment.”

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