Kleenex. Band-Aid. Photoshop.
When was the last time you heard someone ask for a facial tissue? What about an adhesive bandage? When was the last time a colleague told you how they had "altered an image using photo-editing software"? It's probably been a while for all counts. You see, some products can't help but be the best. And when a brand name becomes the "proper" terminology, you know a product is at that point. Photoshop achieved that feat years ago, and it shows no signs of stepping down. Now with the Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac, you can get the power of Photoshop on your Apple computer without the high price tag found on the pro versions. Photoshop Elements 8 brings you a whole slew of powerful editing tools from Adobe's industry-standard tool belt, including all the normal tools plus a lot more new quick-editing tools. While it doesn't have some of the super-professional features of other versions (that by themselves can cost hundreds), it brings you all the tools you need for editing your photos, and probably a whole lot more. With Photoshop Elements, no longer will simple photo editing leave you asking for acetaminophen tablets.
One-click adjustments
Photoshop provides a lot of powerful tools to allow virtually any edits to be made to your photos. But sometimes, getting the right effects and adjustments for your shots is a real challenge unless you've got a lot of experience with advanced photo editing. Well, it used to be anyway. PS Elements 8 adds a lot of features that make touching up or editing your pictures as simple as a couple clicks. Tools for things like red-eye or whitening teeth can be selected. Then, just click and drag the mouse across the affected area and Photoshop will intelligently select the right area and apply a mask that makes the adjustments, all behind the scenes. Other tools allow you to edit photos to make the sky a deeper blue, add contrast, or create stunning black-and-white photos. These smartbrush adjustments allow you to make all sorts of adjustments, from simple touch-ups, lighting adjustments, color tweaks, even full effects like spray tans or synthetic sunsets. If you're of a mind, you can even add smart color masks to make a yellow flower purple, as an example. These tools are easy to use, just by selecting them, then dragging the area until the part you want is highlighted, and the effect is applied automatically. It's that simple! Better yet, each tool can be adjusted with sliders to customize it for the "perfect" finish instead of the one-effect-fits-all "pretty good" one. Best of all, though, these adjustments are non-destructive, each creating a separate layer mask that can be hidden or deleted with no harm done to the original photo.
Cutting your photos down to size
No doubt you've taken them: the photos with multiple subjects, spread out across the frame. It's great to get all the kids at play in the shot, but the big open patch of grass between them doesn't provide a good aesthetic flow. And until now, there was no way to place them closer together without a lot of advanced editing. Simply adjusting the photo size puts them closer but also makes them unnaturally skinny from head to toes. Cutting out the area in between usually leaves a great big, obvious seam. But with Photoshop Elements 8's new Recompose feature, you can simply shrink the photo, and Photoshop will intelligently re-create the picture by moving your subjects closer together while maintaining real parts of the background for a truly natural, distortion-free edited picture. But you can even choose certain areas to have removed first, or saved the longest. Then just slide the photo smaller, and Photoshop will create an authentic, distortion-free version of the shot you wish was there.
High-speed merging . . . much safer than on the road
With Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac, getting the perfect photo is quicker, easier, and more fun than ever. But aside from just the adjustments we already mentioned, there's a whole new powerful tool at your disposal for photo editing. It's called Photomerge. Like it sounds, Photomerge lets you blend two or more pictures of the same subject together to create one final shot. If you're asking what that would be good for, listen up. Photomerge has different options for different situations. Let's say you're at the family reunion and you take a half-dozen shots of the whole crew, but in each one someone's blinking or looking the wrong way. In the past, you got to choose the best out of them and go with it, flaws and all. But with Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac, that's not the case. You see, you can grab two of the photos using Photomerge, then just draw a line across the area (person) you want moved from the source into the final, and it will automatically fix it so that if John had his eyes open in frame 1, but blinked for the second shot, it will add John from shot 1 to shot 2. And you can do this with multiple shots of the same subject, so if everyone's blinking in different pictures, you can still get the best shot of each of them. But Photomerge is also good for things like getting beautiful night portraits by combining a picture with flash for a great view of the subject, and without flash for the lighted scenery. You can even use Photomerge to edit out people who walk through the frame at busy areas or other disturbances, so you could make it look as though you got a private tour of your favorite monuments. With all the Photomerge tools, it really is as simple as dragging across the person or object you want to change. Photoshop will then work behind the scene to analyze the differences between the frames to create a natural-looking merge. As long as it's in one picture of a subject and not in another of the same subject, you're covered with Photomerge's one-click fixes.
Oh yeah, and it's Photoshop
Photomerge, one-click effects, Recompose — those are all great features. But, those are just the new features. Underneath all the new quick, easy editing tools is the same powerful software that has led the industry for years. If you want to make in-depth adjustments and edits for a truly unique picture, need to change something that isn't an effect or a merge (like cropping), prefer more control over your edits, or just like the classic feel of manual editing, don't sweat it. Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac lets you tweak your photos as much as you like. Elements is not a feature-stripped version of Photoshop, it's the real deal minus all the super-advanced adjustments used by professional designers, most of which require training and an extensive background to use correctly. Move, select, merge, paint, erase, blur, burn, draw, clone, write, apply filters, add effects, cut, copy, paste . . . with Elements you really can do all the editing you need for home photos and semi-professional publishing. It's powerful and fast. Don't mess with imitators; get authentic Photoshop for your Mac today.
iLike that
Photoshop Elements 8 won't try and replace iPhoto on your computer. In fact, it's designed to work flawlessly with Mac's iLife photo program. All your photos can be stored in iPhoto, then easily imported to Photoshop and exported back to iPhoto once your edits are complete. iThink that's pretty cool.
Back in black
Another subtle change to Photoshop has nothing to do with the performance, although it does make it much more convenient to use. The newly designed interface accomplishes several things. First of all, the black-themed workspace provides a better viewing area for your photos. But the workstation layout also makes working with your pictures easier than ever by keeping the tools you need close at hand without being in your way while working.
We weren't joking about semi-professional publishing
Seriously, don't think that Elements is an underpowered Photoshop good for making funny pictures for your Facebook. Built into Elements 8 for Mac is the ability to quickly and easily create photo books. There are plenty of templates ready for you to use, which you can edit to suit your needs. Or you can create a totally custom design. Then just drag and drop photos and other fun items (like balloons for a birthday photo book) onto the pages. Adjust their size and placement, add text, edit backgrounds, and just have fun creating your personal photo book. It's really easy! And then when you're done Photoshop can have it published for you (at additional cost) and mailed to your door for a beautiful keepsake to last a lifetime. If paper's not really your medium of choice, don't worry. Publishing your photos in one-of-a-kind web gallery templates is just as simple. It's a great way to add your favorite pictures to your website using Photoshop's easy-to-use templates. Or, e-mail them to friends and family in your template for an unrivaled presentation of your pics.
System requirements
To be able to use Photoshop Elements 8 on your Mac, make sure you've got a multi-core Intel processor with Mac OS X v10.4.11 through v10.5.8 or v10.6.x, at least 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), a minimum 64MB of video RAM, 2GB available hard-disk space or more (more required for installation), at least 1,024 x 768 display resolution, a DVD-ROM drive, Quicktime 7 software (for multimedia features), and an internet connection if you want to use web-based features.
