Eduardo Angel Visuals

Adobe Premiere Elements 11. Worth it?

Back in May, Adobe announced Pho­to­shop CS6 and Pre­miere Pro CS6 with a new user inter­face.  Now, the com­pany has added that new look to Pho­to­shop Ele­ments 11 and Pre­miere Ele­ments 11. Both appli­ca­tions are less intim­i­dat­ing for new­com­ers, allow­ing quick and easy orga­ni­za­tion, edit­ing and shar­ing of media, and tar­geted for new pho­tog­ra­phers or video editors.

Both apps include an image orga­nizer that closely resem­bles Adobe Bridge, mak­ing the most com­monly used func­tions eas­ily acces­si­ble, while other tools are hid­den away in the menus. The new orga­nizer is laid out as a 3 col­umn panel in Pho­to­shop Ele­ments 11 and inte­grates with  Google Maps, just like the Map Mod­ule in Adobe Light­room 4. Addi­tion­ally, tag­ging pho­tos and videos with peo­ple or events (mim­ic­k­ing Face­book) is now possible.

Since Pre­miere Ele­ments includes “Expert” work­spaces with inter­est­ing tran­si­tions and effects, this might be a good prod­uct for pho­tog­ra­phers tran­si­tion­ing into video. The goal is not to become an expert video edi­tor, but under­stand NLE apps and more impor­tantly, the required assets to put together a video project.

The lat­est ver­sion of Pre­miere Ele­ments makes burn­ing fin­ished movies and upload­ing them directly to YouTube or Vimeo a breeze.

The com­pany also decided to high­light brand new fil­ters in Pho­to­shop Ele­ments 11, which we are guess­ing are inspired by all of the comic-book movie hits this year. Some of these fil­ters include “Graphic Novel,” and “Pen & Ink,” and “Comic.” They can quickly turn an image into an awe­some illus­tra­tion, or a photographer’s worst night­mare. Some­thing “bor­rrowed” from Pho­to­shop CS6 is the “Refine Edge” tool, which is great to cut out objects and peo­ple, tak­ing into account fine edges like hair or leaves.

Film­mak­ers will also enjoy a series of new Hollywood-inspired fil­ters, includ­ing “Red Noir”, a “Sin City”-esque effect with red accents, and “Pan­dora,” appar­ently meant to evoke “Avatar.” Feel free to take a fur­ther look at this use­less effect. Time Remap­ping and Reverse Time have been added so fast or slow-motion effects are just a click away.

The price tag seems very rea­son­able:  $100 each app or $150 for both as a bun­dle. An upgrade from pre­vi­ous ver­sions of Ele­ments goes for $80 each, or $120 for both. Ready to play? Down­load the free trial from Adobe’s web­site. Ready to buy?  Hurry up! Ama­zon is offer­ing the bun­dle for only $137!