New creativity options are also on hand for creating Flash animated slideshows for web use, and for creating printable multi-photo album page designs and virtual photo flip-books.įor organising your photo collection, another interesting new feature is that you can place photos onto on-screen maps (supplied by Yahoo), by using push-pins.

This comes complete with a barrage of options for getting exactly the effect you want without having to wrestle with the software, as is normally the case. It's almost like Adobe is trying to make up for lost time in this department.īehind the smart new interface, Elements 5 has a set of slick new features including a superb tool for converting colour photos to black and white images. The good news is that not only is there a new Colour Curves feature in Elements 5, but also that it's supremely versatile and, as with so many other tools in the program, brilliantly easy to use.Īvailable in both simple and advanced options, Colour Curves gives you conventional curve graphs that you can drag to the shape you want, and it also has a range of presets, all with their own previews, for carrying out the most common enhancements that you use curves for. Using this, you can apply a classic S-shaped curve, for example, to add contrast to dull, flat images. One feature that's always been lacking in Elements, at least when compared with other similarly priced image editors, is a Curves adjustment tool. And if the use of layers is still a bit of a black art to you, rest assured that the layers system in Photoshop Elements is wonderfully intuitive, logical and easy to get to grips with. Like Paint Shop Pro (reviewed on the next page), Photoshop Elements has plenty of layer options and, while they're not as far-reaching as the ones in the full-fat Photoshop, the inclusion of 'adjustment layers' is a welcome addition to this version. Meanwhile, an Enhance pull-down menu gives fast access to a range of automatic enhancements and there's a much wider selection of manual image adjustment possibilities in the Filter menu.

Here, you get a full range of photo editing features that include such favourites as cut-out tools, blemish removal facilities, dodging, burning and more besides. For those who like to be in control, and don't mind putting in the extra effort, a single click on the main toolbar's Full Edit icon changes the whole interface into a kind of 'expert' mode.

Adobe photoshop elements 5.0 updates