If you listen to The Digi Show (and I don’t know why you wouldn’t!) then you heard me announce on last week’s episode that Adobe just released Photoshop Elements 10. I stick out a bit on The Digi Show since I’m an avid Elements user (most designers and many hardcore digi scrappers use Photoshop CS these days) I like to show that you can really do almost anything you could ever want to do in digi with Elements because it has become a very powerful program. And now with version 10, that is more true than ever!
Many digital scrapbookers love and use PSE (Photoshop Elements) programs. The price point is much more accessible than Photoshop and so is the learning curve. Plus, you can even try it for free with this download.
I’m not sure how much the Adobe team thinks about the digital scrapbooker when putting together these products since they are mainly marketed as photo editing programs? That’s what is so neat about the digital community though, there are always tons of tutorials and ideas for using PSE to create amazing photo creations and scrapbook layouts. Perhaps you’ve heard of a “little” site called The Daily Digi? Hello?! I’m a contributing writer and team member there and we talk digi every day. Between the blog posts, designer spotlights, the monthly playbook, free tutorials, online classes, and all the inspirational layouts we share, you will find OODLES of PSE (and PS) information! I will definitely be sharing some PSE love there, but since I had the opportunity to be an advance reviewer for Adobe, I wanted to share a bit of my excitement with you here as well.
So what’s new in 10 for digital scrapbookers?
The big news is that now you can create text on a path in Elements.
This feature was the one I was most excited about, but as you can see in this video tutorial from Hummie and as you will read in the about.com review, the technology just isn’t quite as good as Photoshop CS text on a path tools. So I’ll just start off by saying that if the only reason you plan to upgrade is for the new text tools, that’s the wrong reason to purchase this version.
That said, I still LOVE this new version of PSE 10. As far as the digital scrapbooking workflow goes, version 10 is quite similar to 9. The biggest changes are really in the photo editing tools, sharing options, (and video tools in PSE Premiere). I will talk about those features in my post tomorrow. Today, I want to tell you about what is better in 10 for digital scrapbooking.
- Bigger workspace and more visible bin across the bottom. These are subtle changes, but they make a big difference for me.
- More default drop shadow options. As a digi scrapper, I still like to customize my shadows, but there are several new default settings that are really nice.
- More installed styles to apply. I didn’t appreciate this feature until recently when I worked on this post for The Daily Digi. I’m excited to play around with the installed styles in 10.
- More installed effects. These get better and better with each version of Elements and I like the variety that is included with the program.
- The smart brush tool – this is especially cool! There are about 30 new effects that you essentially “paint” on to your photos and layouts.
Photoshop Elements has already been a great program for a long time. In my opinion, version 8 was a huge jump up in quality and was totally worth upgrading for. Versions 9 & 10 are also very good and essentially just improve on the changes that were made for version 8. My recommendation is that if you are on anything lower than 8, you really will appreciate version 10 and find it well worth the cost and effort to upgrade. If you are working in 8 or 9 already (as a digital scrapbooker), you still will enjoy 10, but it won’t be as major of an improvement.
If you want to try it out for yourself, you can download a free 30 day trial from the Adobe website.
I love how powerful PSE has become and it is my number one choice in software when it comes to digital scrapbooking! Here’s the layout I created while I was playing around in PSE 10.
I used Sara Gleason’s (zinnia & swallowtails) new Apple Tree kit. I love that kit, and I especially love this cute preschool picture of my daughter from 11 years ago. Where does the time go?
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