Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2024: Here’s what’s new

The new Adobe Photoshop Elements 2024 is currently available for download. Image: Adobe

Every year, Adobe announces updates to its user-friendly Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements image and video-editing programs and this year is no exception. These updates, like the programs themselves, are a combination of easy-to-use functionality and new and additional creative options. Here’s a look at some updates that may appeal to current and potential users.

Adobe Photoshop Elements

The most noticeable (and, perhaps, notable) update is the revised user interface (UI) – a welcome change and, we think, long overdue. In addition to redesigned fonts and menus, Photoshop Elements now offers a dark mode. Users can quickly switch between the app’s standard white background to a dark background that better visually offsets images.

New (and long overdue) is a revamped user interface with a dark mode option. Image: Adobe

One-click fixes have now been consolidated into a single quick action panel for more efficient access and organized into several general categories such as Background, Subject and Creative, to name a few. Within these groupings, there are 25 options, including several new features such as Select Background, Select Sky and Remove JPEG Artifacts. As the name suggests, the latter is designed to produce smoother and more natural-looking images, particularly those suffering from excessive compression.

A new one-click fix is designed to remove JPEG artifacts such as those that result from image compression. Image: Adobe

Photoshop Elements is well-known for its helpful step-by-step Guided Edits – a great reference when learning a new skill. For a more efficient workflow, Adobe has consolidated all its text options in one place. A new creative text style has been added, allowing users to stylize text by warping, adding gradients, patterns and textures to add some pizzazz to cards or social media posts.

A new text Guided Edit lets you get creative with text, adding elements such as textures and gradients. Image: Adobe

Also new is Color Match, a feature that can be helpful when users want a similar look or tone to that of another image. Transferring or simulating the color tone of one image to another is achieved easily by sampling the color of one of the Adobe presets designed for this purpose or from one of your own photos. Saturation, hue and brightness can then be adjusted to fit the desired aesthetic. This might be an interesting option to bring the same mood or look not only to a single photo but a series of images to unify the group of photos visually.

With color match, you can apply the color of one image to another. Image: Adobe

Reels have become part of our photo vocabulary, so it’s no surprise that Photoshop Elements includes a Reels feature in this latest release. Gather a few photos, add text, effects and graphics, and Photoshop Elements will convert it to an mp4 video or a GIF to share on social media or via email.

Photoshop Elements makes creating a reel of your images to share as an mp4 video or a GIF easy. Image: Adobe

Also, in support of social media, Photoshop Elements now offers templates for Instagram, Facebook and X (aka Twitter) formats. Use these convenient options to ensure the correct size and aspect ratio for posts, IG stories and Facebook profiles, to name a few possibilities.

To round out the major updates. Photoshop Elements users now have access to free Adobe Stock photos. These can be combined with personal photos for collages and to replace backgrounds (some cool backgrounds are available, including pretty or neutral designs and solid colors). And with the program’s one-click select/replace background capabilities, the stock images may come in handy for creative projects.

Adobe Premiere Elements 2024, the video software sibling of Photoshop Elements, is available for download. Image: Adobe

Adobe Premiere Elements

A couple of features from Photoshop Elements have carried over to the video side, including a revamped UI and the choice of dark or light modes. Premiere Elements also offers the same color Match option to transfer or simulate the color and tone from a photo or video to another video. Again, you can choose from the included presets or your own image or video to source the borrowed ‘look’. Of course, the color adjustment is implemented throughout the video, not just in a single frame.

Like Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements also offers the Color Match feature to apply the color and look of one image or video to another video. Image: Adobe

The Reels theme also carries over to Premiere Elements but is implemented a little differently. Rather than the user selecting the imagery, the software identifies what it considers to be compelling footage, taking into account facial visibility, whether there’s a group of people, how much action is happening and the quality of the footage. Once clips that meet these criteria have been selected, Premiere Elements combines them into a highlight reel of your best (according to the program) stuff. But you can edit the video if you want to make some adjustments. You can even apply a preset look and choose an audio option.

Premiere Elements will select your “best” (most interesting) clips and combine them into a video Reel. Image: Adobe

Of course, audio is an essential component of any video and Premiere Elements offers a dozen new audio effects for a more polished track (or, maybe, just for fun). Among the new audio effects are ReVerb, De Hummer and Vocal Enhancer.

You can jazz up or polish your audio tracks with new options, such as ReVerb and DeHummer in Premiere Elements. Image: Adobe

Web & Mobile Companion Apps

The Elements Web and Mobile companion apps have a few new features. However, the updates are in Beta and only in English. Perhaps the most important is the interoperability and syncing across the mobile, desktop and Web versions of Elements.

Price and Availability

Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2024 are available now for download. Pricing for perpetual licenses hasn’t changed and includes full and upgrade options. Adobe Photoshop Elements 2024 will set you back $99 for the full version or $79 for an upgrade. Pricing is the same for its video counterpart: Premiere Elements costs $99 (full) and $79 (upgrade). A bundle with both applications costs $149.99 (full) and $119.99 for an upgrade.