This seems to be the time of year for leaves to fall, hockey to start and new versions of digital editing software to emerge.
Twelve months after their last releases, Adobe and Corel are putting out new editions of their professional-consumer photo authoring suites, promising to make the task of selecting, correcting and printing images easier than ever.
Earlier this month Corel Corp. released Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, while Adobe will release version 6.0 of Photoshop Elements today, both for Windows. Adobe will also release Photoshop Premiere 4.0, a digital video editing suite. A Mac version of Elements will be out early next year.
In the past, these Paint Shop and Elements have looked quite different. This year, however, both have copied the dark grey background of Adobe’s recently-released Lightroom metadata editor for their desktops and look rather similar.The changes to Elements makes the professional version of Photoshop CS3 “look like old technology,” said Colin Smith, a senior Adobe application developer at a briefing for reporters.
Gone are the separate editing and organizing views in previous versions of the software. Elements 6 now borrows from Lightroom by putting access to different functions in tabs called Organize, Fix, Create and Share to the left of an onscreen image. Clicking on a tab brings you to the functions without moving the image.
Elements 6 also takes Lightroom’s image organizing system, allowing users to create Smart Albums of not only still images but video clips as well.
Serious photographers will be pleased images shot in Camera Raw format can now be opened and edited in Elements, in either 8- or 16-bit size. Controls include the ability to crop and remove red-eye. Tools for adjusting sharpening through amount, radius, detail and masking are also available.
However, these are not close to the extensive raw adjustment tools in Elements.The tools for converting colour images to black and white have been enhanced, with several styles to choose from all of which can be honed.
For those who hate having group shots of people where one person looks better (or worse) than others, Elements 6 has borrowed from CS3 to give a Photomerge function lets users merge people’s faces from one image into another.
Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 has added an Express Lab mode, which lets users view and edit photos – including those in raw format — faster than previous editions.In an effort to overcome the narrow exposure range of digital cameras, advanced photographers sometimes make several different exposures of a high-contrast scene and then blend them in a technique called high dynamic range imaging. Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 offers an automated function to do that called HDR Photo Merge.
X2 also adds a Layers Style tool for adding drop shadows, embossing, bevels and reflections to text and photos.
Also new is the Thinify tool, which can make people look thinner with just one click, a watermark tool and the Save for Office option, in which photos can be automatically resized and saved in a format.
For those who edit digital video, Premiere Elements 4.0 inteface has been rearranged, again to be similar to Lightroom, in the hopes of making it easier for users to do their work.
Perhaps the biggest change is Premiere’s ability to split footage into individual scenes that can be displayed either as Scenelines or the familiar Timeline, for users who prefer to edit by a scene they remember rather than by time.
A new audio mixer promises to help users control and add sound.
Among the new features are the ability to add movie-like themes to videos, which are frames or animations around themes such as wedding, birthday or music video.
An Image Stabilization filter will give some ability to rescue shaky footage.
As before Premiere Elements 4.0 will be sold individually or bundled with Elements 6.0.
The price of all three suites has not changed from last year.