Photoshop Elements brings much of the visual magic from Adobe Photoshop to beginners and aspiring professionals alike. Like Adobe's professional Creative Cloud apps, the newest version emphasizes generative AI tools. An Elements license is more affordable than a year-long subscription to the full version of Photoshop, although it now only provides a three-year usage period instead of the previous perpetual license. Overall, Photoshop Elements continues to earn its Editors' Choice status for pro-level photo editing software, thanks to its robust toolset and user-friendly design.
You can purchase Photoshop Elements on its own for $99.99 or as part of a bundle with Premiere Elements for $149.99. As mentioned, a license to the 2026 version is not perpetual; it expires after three years. Updating from a previous version costs $79.99. A seven-day trial is available; however, I would prefer a more standard 30-day testing window.
Close competitor Corel PaintShop Pro starts at a one-time price of $79.99 and has many of Photoshop's features. Another similar option, ACDSee Photo Studio, costs $149.95 for a one-time license or $89 per year as part of a subscription that includes several other editing apps and additional features. A one-time license to CyberLink PhotoDirector, which has features of both Lightroom and Photoshop, costs the same as Photoshop Elements at $99.99, though a $64.99-per-year subscription gets you lots of effects and stock content.
As with most recent software releases, Photoshop Elements 2026 gains a generous number of generative AI features, including the ability to create imagery from text prompts. Here's the rundown of what's new:
Access to Adobe Express Templates. Adobe's online graphic design app, Adobe Express, offers thousands of free templates to help you get started creating your own images.
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Contextual task bar. This very handy tool makes its way from Photoshop into Photoshop Elements. It offers relevant buttons for edits that make sense for the current image, such as Remove Background or Select Subject.
Enhanced Remove Tool. This AI-powered tool automatically detects people in the background of your photos, letting you remove them easily.
Generate Image. Use Adobe's Firefly generative AI technology to create images based on your text prompts.
Import Mobile Photos with a QR code. When you choose "Open from Mobile" from the Open button drop-down menu, the program displays a code that opens a mobile site on your phone, from which you can import photos.
Insert Object. In an existing image, you can highlight an area to insert an object you describe in text.
Restore Photo. Photoshop Elements has long had photo restoration capabilities, but this new AI-powered tool automatically fixes scratches, tears, and faded areas of old photos.
Spell Checker. You don't want that text overlay to contain a solecism. This new feature offers a customizable dictionary that allows you to add your own terms.
WebP support. Google's lightweight image file format has become prevalent on the web; now, you can edit and save files in this format in Photoshop Elements.
In case you missed them, here are some highlights from the 2025 update:
Depth Blur: High-end smartphones have been using computational photography to simulate the blur effects of fast SLR lenses for years. Now, you can do this in Photoshop Elements.
Combine Photos: This tool lets you use the subject from one picture as the background of a second photo—no green screen required!
Change Object Color: Use the automatic selection tool to choose a shirt or another object in your photo, and then select a color from the color picker to change it instantly.
Motion Effect Quick Actions: These automatically add some Motion Photo effects (which actually create short videos) that Adobe introduced in previous versions. The Quick Actions include Blinking Heart Graphic, Pink Frame, Sparkles Overlay, and Zoom In-Out.
You install Photoshop Elements with a small helper app that downloads and sets up the software. The updated app requires 3.5GB of space on my PC, but according to Adobe's documentation, it needs 10GB of available drive space. You also need an Intel 8th Generation or newer processor or AMD equivalent with SSE4.2 support, 8GB RAM, 9GB of hard drive space, and a monitor with at least a 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. You can install Photoshop Elements on Apple macOS version 14.4 or later, Windows 10 version 22H2 or later, and Windows 11 version 23H2 or later. No Linux version is available. Adobe is no longer developing mobile and web versions of Photoshop Elements.
The macOS version matches its Windows counterpart feature for feature. It now supports Apple silicon processors natively, so you can expect good performance on that platform. Unlike Premiere Elements, Photoshop Elements is available on the Mac App Store, which simplifies installation, updates, and moving from one computer to another. I like that you can use Elements offline, unlike Photoshop and Lightroom.
Two utilities join the main photo editing program: the Start screen and the Organizer. You generally pass through these before opening the actual editor. In the past, I’ve lamented the delay in getting to the editor, but I still see value in both.
The Start screen is not only your portal to both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, but it also presents some extremely useful features. On it, you see tips for how to use new editing tools, links to your most recent files, and Auto Creations—slideshows and collages the program automatically generates from your content.
The Organizer application, as its name implies, is where you import, group, tag, and output your photos. You don't have to use it, but it has a lot of capabilities that would otherwise clutter the main editing application. Its powerful search, auto-curation, and sharing tools can be useful additions to the standard organization tools. Competitors like Corel PaintShop Pro and ACDSee eliminate the need for an extra application, instead offering everything in a single interface. Four main mode choices appear at the top of the Organizer's window: Media, People, Places, and Events.
The Organizer search bar lets you filter content by people, place, keyword tags, media type, date, and folder. You can also combine search criteria to narrow the results. Smart Tags automatically identify what's in the photo—an animal, a face, a landscape, or a flower—following the AI and machine learning trend we've seen in services like Flickr, Google Photos, and OneDrive. This cutting-edge technology saves you from having to explicitly apply tags to photos, though you can still do so yourself if you want more control.
Organizer's Places mode displayed my location for photos taken on my phone based on embedded GPS data, but the Places section on the Search page indicated that there are no Places tags to search by; I had to enter location tags manually for anything to appear here. It's annoying when one part of a program has information that's not accessible to another. I prefer the way Google Photos and the built-in photography apps in Windows and macOS display a small map in the Info panel while you view an individual photo.
To search based on faces, you must first supply names in the People module. The program detects all faces and tries to match them to any you've already identified, but it's not 100% accurate. Sometimes, side profiles or weird angles can cause issues. It's easy to add photos to a face tag by confirming the program's proposed images. Once you do so, you can search for all photos that feature Jordan and Max, for example, or for all photos with either Jordan or Max.
Below the Share button is the Auto Curate checkbox. The first time I tried to check this, it said Auto Curation was in progress. That's understandable since it analyzes your entire photo library. A few minutes later, I could see the photos it had chosen, along with a slider to adjust the number of photos. The fewer you choose, the higher the quality of the photos that appear. For example, you can see what the program identifies as your 50 best photos or your 100 best (10 is the minimum). The app looks for elements such as lighting, composition, focus, and even emotional impact (think pictures of people embracing). Most of my results understandably included humans, and the tool did turn up a bunch of good shots I'd forgotten about. You can apply Auto Curate to a search to find, for example, your best shots of mountains or cats.
At the top right of the Organizer interface, a cloud icon lets you sync your photos (and videos) to Adobe online storage for use in the mobile and web versions of Elements (both still in beta). In the drop-down menu that opens from the cloud icon, a globe icon takes you to Elements' web address in your default browser.
I still have a few quibbles. You can't double-click on a photo in its search results to launch the image in the editor; doing so opens the image to fill the Organizer window. You can't zoom the photo you're viewing, though you can zoom the thumbnail grid. There are no smart albums, such as Last Import, like you get in Apple Photos and Adobe Lightroom. The Editor interface provides no accommodation for screen sizes other than HD and 4K. I use a QHD (1440p) display, so the smaller size is too small, and the larger one is too large. Furthermore, there's no specialized support for touch screens, unlike Photoshop and Lightroom, which offer additional features; all you can do is zoom and scroll with pinches and flicks.
Auto Creations
After I had Elements import a couple of hundred photos and video clips, the Home screen displayed more than a dozen Auto Creations it had generated from my content in the Home window. From photos shot around the same area and time, it produced pleasant collages, which benefited from a bit of editing and photo swapping. The feature also created several slideshows of varying interest from my test media, with effective transitions and backgrounds.
Elements still lacks one feature from Apple Photos, Google Photos, and Windows Photos: automatic album creation. Those products group photos from locations and time periods, automatically suggesting albums. Though they don't always hit the mark, they can be a good way to get you started with albums.
Like the mainline Photoshop app, Elements now lets you generate a completely new image or add a generated background or object to an existing one. To use the first two AI features discussed below, you will need to spend generative credits. Users of the free trial receive 10 credits, while paid users receive 25 credits per month. A small icon with stars indicates the number of credits you have remaining. If you need more, you have to sign up for a Firefly subscription, starting at $9.99 per month for 2,000 credits.
Generate Image
You don't have quite the same level of control in Elements as you do in Firefly or Photoshop; you simply choose between art and photo styles (or let the program decide with the Auto option) and enter your description. An Inspiration button offers suggestions with sample prompts. If you generate something while you're already editing an image, the new creation appears as a layer above your existing canvas. I stumped the AI a bit with my prompt, "a flock of flamingo dinosaurs in the tropics with palm trees," because it came up with only regular flamingos. The four pictures it created look quite nice, though, with later ones appearing increasingly photorealistic. As with most of these tools, you can expect imperfect results, with elements that don't quite look right; however, the technology is improving, and the images are becoming more convincing.
AI Insert Object
The idea with this tool is to add something to an existing image. You start by brushing over the area of the image you want to add to. I asked Elements to add a bouquet of chrysanthemums to a portrait by Rembrandt. The result was correct and amusing, though the hands in the first creation didn't quite fit. The four created images used three different flower colors among them, which I appreciate, since I didn't specify a color. Two of the creations had hands that better matched the style of the original painting.
AI Remove
This tool is sort of a modification of the previous one. Instead of adding a generated object to your shot, it uses AI to replace it with content that matches the photo's existing background. New for this tool is the "Find people in the background" button. This worked fairly well in testing, but it missed people who were sitting down on the first go-around. With a second press of the button, the tool successfully found and removed them.
Restore Photos
This tool uses AI to revive cracked, faded, or scratched photographs. Once you download it (850MB), it will be available from the Enhance menu. Then, it's a one-step process. The program analyzes and attempts to correct your photo with no user input required. But in my test photo, a crack still showed an outline in the result. Fortunately, you can use sliders to further enhance faces, scratches, and the photo as a whole. But even turning the Scratch reduction all the way up still left a remnant of the severe crack. With another old photo featuring an even more severe crack, but a less complex background, remnants of scratches also remained after the repair. The tool took about 25 seconds to complete in my testing, so it's not instant. Nonetheless, it successfully removed some smaller damage spots from the photos. Note that this tool doesn't require AI credits, as it processes everything locally.
Photoshop Elements really shines when you move from the Organizer to the full Editor app. The program has many of Photoshop proper's high-end image manipulation capabilities but makes them easier to use.
Three modes are available in the editor—Quick, Guided, and Expert. Switching among them is accomplished simply with buttons across the top. The Create button, located next to Open, provides easy access to tools for creating slideshows, collages, reels, and more. The Quick Actions button (available only in Quick mode) in the bottom-right toolbar takes you to many of the most common edits, such as selecting a background, color correction, smoothing skin, and removing a background. I appreciate the inclusion of the Contextual Toolbar, which is similar to the one found in Photoshop. Its buttons take you directly to common actions based on the current image, saving you from having to hunt through menus and toolbars.
Elements Effects feel like Instagram-squared, with controls that the mobile app simply can't match. The Smart Looks tool chooses an effect based on image analysis and offers four variations. They match the image types of my test shots well. You have three categories of effects: Artistic (AI-powered simulations of famous artists), Classic (including Smart Looks, Tint, and Vintage), and Color Match (drastically changes the photo's colors, similar to LUTs).
When you choose the crop tool, you see four proposed crops in the bottom panel, based on the faces the software identified and other criteria. It works impressively, framing group photos and suggesting creative looks for landscapes. The Crop tool is suitable for many professional use cases, allowing you to specify standard aspect ratios and even a target size in pixels.
Expert mode provides near-Photoshop levels of control, complete with filters, layers, actions (the ability to run preset Actions like resizing and effects, rather than creating them), histograms, levels, and numerous artistic and graphic effects. As with Photoshop, you get an array of tool buttons along the left, and the software saves edited files in the Photoshop (PSD) format. For web producers, there's a Save for Web option, which optimizes (that is, reduces the file size of) images.
With the latest version of Elements, you get a generous selection of content, such as backgrounds, frames, and shapes, to spruce up a photograph. The Create button opens a window full of Adobe Express templates that you can use for free.
You can also obtain stock photos from Adobe Stock, accessible through the Search on Adobe Stock option in the File menu.
The Text tool allows you to wrap text around a shape, ensuring it doesn't overlap with important parts of an image. Character-styling options are far less extensive than those in Photoshop, however.
Select Subject is simply a button that appears at the bottom panel when you're using the selection brush; it's also available from the Select menu. It worked admirably on all but photos with backgrounds that blended in with the subject. Choosing Refine Edge opens a separate panel where you can change the selection view (for example, using a red, white, or black background), apply feathering, and access other advanced options, such as Decontaminate Colors, which removes color distortion from the selection.
You can also perform other standard Photoshop edits, such as blurring, sharpening, and adding imagery. There's a good selection of clip art, too. The spot-healing brush does an excellent job of removing blemishes.
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Raw File Support
When you open a raw file from a DSLR or high-end mirrorless camera, the program starts out in a separate Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) window. You have to install it as a separate plug-in. At least that saves hard drive space for those who will never use it. In its window, you have access to controls for color, exposure, and detail. It does include Adobe's raw Profiles—such as Color, Portrait, and Vivid—along with noise reduction. However, the Elements version of ACR lacks many other features found in the Photoshop and Lightroom versions, including chromatic aberration correction, lens correction, and selection tools. The raw importer features red-eye reduction and cropping, which appear to be unnecessary duplications of the functionality available in the Editor app.
It's challenging to achieve great results when trying to lighten dark areas of the face from a JPEG image. Raw camera files yield better results, so it's better to use a product designed for working with raw files, such as Lightroom, for this type of operation.
Face Editing
Most portrait photographers are adept at smoothing skin, and Element's Smooth Skin enhancement simplifies the process. It identifies faces, overlays a circle, and lets you smooth or blur the area; you can adjust the intensity of the smoothing. It's a quick fix, but I think you're better off applying a Gaussian blur to a selection or using the Spot Healing brush.
The Adjust Facial Features tool is accessible from the Enhance menu. Open it, and a window pops up with all the faces circled. A right-side panel has adjusters for Lips (with Smile and related sub-choices), Eyes, Nose, and Face. The last lets you change the forehead height, jawbone shape, and chin height. Just as with a similar tool in Photoshop, you can have a lot of fun with it. It does a great job of identifying the facial features and convincingly modifying them. It's probably best to use these tools sparingly unless you want your friends to look like strangers.
A face feature allows you to adjust the tilt and direction of multiple faces in a photo. It works well for subtle adjustments, but can’t help you if the face in the original is in profile. The unique Open Closed Eyes tool allows you to choose an eye source; the fixed open eyes do not need to come from the same person's face as the one with closed eyes. Believe me, if you try it with the glamor model sample eye source photos Adobe provides, you'll be in for some laughs. When using the same person's eyes, the results are decent.
Moving Pictures
Photoshop Elements has three Moving tools at the bottom of the Enhance menu: Moving Elements, Moving Overlay, and Moving Photos. Creating animated GIFs can be challenging without specialized tools. Moving Elements creates a very specific type of animation that you can save in either GIF or MP4 format, in which the photo subject or the whole photo zooms, pans, rotates, or even flows.
With these tools, you can choose a GIF or MP4 and the export file size. That last option is very helpful since one image I tried to share was over 25MB and too large for Facebook Messenger to accept. That said, it would be nice to have more options when creating the animation, such as looping, refining the selection of what moves, and adjusting the distance of the motion.
Photo Reels
Whether you're looking at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, those short, vertical social meme-like movies have come to prominence on the internet. Photoshop Elements' Photo Reels tools provide nonprofessionals with an easy way to create this type of content. Open at least two photos in the program, then head to the Create menu and select Photo Reel from the Adobe Express panel. You see a timeline across the bottom with all your images. You then select a Layout with choices for the specific social apps. You can adjust the duration each image displays, as well as add text, effects (such as Vintage or Pastel), and graphics (like birthday cakes and balloons).
As with the other motion pictures above, you get the same two export choices: MP4 and GIF. Aside from the sparsity of graphics, the tool falls short in several areas. It doesn't support music or transitions, so its creations don't match the best reels you see on social video platforms. Of course, you can usually select background music when uploading. Since most social apps allow you to do most of this with their built-in tools, Reels could be useful as a way to share smartphone-friendly videos with your friends.
Colorize Photos
This tool impressively utilizes AI to colorize black-and-white images. After converting your image from monochrome to RGB and churning for a while, Auto mode presents you with four colorized versions of your photo. The top two choices skew toward warm tones, while the bottom two skew toward cool tones. It handles various skin colors with aplomb. I wish you could adjust the intensity of the colorization within the tool, but you can always tweak colors with the separate Hue/Saturation tool. Elements is especially adept at identifying water bodies and vegetation for correct color rendering.
The Manual mode is completely different. It lets you select areas of an image that you want to change the colors of. For example, you can turn a blue shirt red. It works better with solid colors than with patterns, but it effectively handles varying lighting in the selected areas.
Change Object Color
If you instead want to change the color of something in a color photo, Elements 2025 lets you do that. There's no tool or Guided Edit for it, though you can access the Change Object Color interface via the Enhance menu. It provides several selection tools to get you started. After you make your selection, you choose the color you want to change an object to from a standard color picker dialog box. As you might expect, this works best for solid-colored objects. However, you can use it as an effect if you're not simply looking to change the color of a single, simple thing. Below, I changed the hat and jacket to an attractive green shade. There's no Before and After split view, though you can switch between the two views via a control at the bottom right.
Guided Edits are one way that Elements helps novices create advanced, pro-level Photoshop effects. They're basically wizards that use tools within the app. You won't need the Guided Edits to create these effects if you know what you are doing, but we don't all have MFAs.
A gallery of Guided Edits displays examples of their work, and swiping the cursor over them reveals the before and after images. The interface remains the same in the latest version, and Adobe updated just two Guided Edits: Photo Text and Double Exposure.
Different Guided Edit types are organized into sections, including Basics, Color, and Fun Edits. There are now more than 60 in all, so thankfully, there's a search box for them. You can tap keyword buttons for Portrait, Landscape, Recent, Popular, and Updated. When you go through a Guided Edit, you see a before-and-after split-screen view, but I wish you could step backward or forward in the process. Below, I take you through a few of the newer and cooler Guided Edits.
Enhanced Photo Text
This Guided Edit offers a fun way to convey your message; it allows you to use your image as the backdrop for your words. It takes advantage of the new Contextual Toolbar for completing steps, which actually feels less familiar than simply following the panel's instructions, but I got used to the new method quickly. You can choose between Fit and Fill to expand the text to the size of your image, and you have the option of a black, white, or transparent background.
Perfect Pet
The Perfect Pet Guided Edit is a response to all those pet photos in which part of the animal's face is in shadow as a natural result of their mugs. The Guided Edit starts you out with cropping and straightening buttons. Then, you get to remove dirt and spots with a spot-removal tool. More central to this edit are the Remove Collar & Leash and Fix Pet's Eye buttons.
The first is an object removal tool that requires you to select an area with the collar, while the eye fixer removes excessive glare from those big, shiny eyes. You need the Guided Edit's Subject Select, Lighting, and Lighten brush to fix the dark side of the pet's face. I only wish there were an Open Closed Eyes tool as Elements has for humans.
Perfect Landscape
Photoshop has a Sensei AI-powered one-click sky replacement tool, and it makes sense for Elements. It’s included in the Perfect Landscapes Guided Edit, which also suggests cropping, straightening, and dehazing. Unfortunately, in the example above, using sky replacement removed the mountain, the main subject of the landscape. The other tools included in the Guided Edit, however, did improve the shot.
Many Photoshop effects involve selecting objects precisely and either adding or removing them to or from an image. With the Auto Selection tool, you draw a rectangle or shape over the object you want to select, and the tool determines your object's edges. The earlier Quick Selection tool has you scribble on the object you want to select. I still prefer Quick over Auto since getting the right shape, size, and placement is trickier.
The Select Sky and Select Background buttons appear when you're using the Quick Selection tool, either in Quick or Advanced mode. Alternatively, you can access these options from the Select menu.
All the selection tools offer a Refine Edge option, which uses a circle with inner and outer selection circumferences. The brilliance of the tool is that it switches between adding and subtracting from your selection depending on whether you're inside or outside the original selection. You can hover the tool right over the edge for Photoshop Elements to refine the selection for you. That usually means adding those stray hairs to it. The tool worked impressively on a photo of my niece's Shih Tzu puppy.
Photomerge Tools
The Photomerge Group Shot tool enables you to capture the best expression on each person from a series of group shots. You can, for example, give one person's face their eyes from another shot. Scene Cleaner allows you to remove passersby from a landscape or famous site. Exposure, also known as high dynamic range (HDR), enhances images by combining two or more shots to create the best version of, for example, the clouds in the sky from one picture and the forest below from a second shot.
The Photomerge Panorama tool gives you a lot of control, allowing you to create a full panorama rather than one with twisted edges. It even fills in empty areas left by the photos and stitching, to impressive effect in my testing. Please keep in mind that it may take some time to complete its work. You won't find that filling option in other software.
Smart Brushes and Other Tools
Another photo-enhancing tool, Smart Brushes, allows you to apply effects and adjustments to specific areas of a photo, including black and white, color, lighting, special effects, and artistic treatments such as drawing. These offer a really cool and easy way to make a sky bluer or darken areas of an image.
Warp tools, a long-standing staple of Photoshop, enable you to reshape an image either manually or automatically into a choice of preset shapes, such as ovals, arcs, flags, and twists.
One trick missing is CyberLink PhotoDirector's Multiple Exposure feature, which can automatically create impressive action images with multiple instances of your subject.
Finally, another tool that has come down from Photoshop is Shake Reduction. It automatically sharpens shots taken while the camera is slightly shaken. It provides the same level of control as the Photoshop tool, allowing you to select the area you want to correct.
Elements has the most output options of any consumer photo editor, whether you're into creating slideshows, sending picture emails, printing via Shutterfly, burning discs, or uploading to web galleries. You can directly upload to online photo sites, including Flickr and Twitter. I would still like to see more social outlets here, such as Instagram, Pinterest, and Flipboard. One minor disappointment is that Elements' keyword tags don't carry over into Flickr, although you can add tags during the uploading process. Other drawbacks include the lack of direct sharing to Facebook Messenger, Skype, or WhatsApp. If Adobe had produced a UWP app, this would all be possible via Windows' standard Share button.
Elements' photo slideshows are actually videos. You can start creating one from either the Organizer or by selecting images in the editor and choosing the Create drop-down. You get six templates, including Classic, Pan and Zoom, WaterColor, and Woods. You can change the background music and add or remove images to suit your taste, but the software generates the slideshow automatically and starts playing immediately, so your layout choices are somewhat limited. The tools in Apple Photos and Microsoft Photos offer more customization at this point, with more canned music choices and control over slide duration.
Quote Graphic offers templates that resemble greeting cards, designed for use on social media. You can choose a shape that works for stories or posts on Facebook and Instagram primarily. Shapes and graphics can adorn your image as well as text. You can even choose an animation style, such as those in the Moving Photos discussed above.
Adobe lets you order photo prints from within the Photoshop Elements application. From the Create menu, choose Photo Prints, FujiFilm Prints and Gifts, and accept the Fuji terms of use. You then see a window that's essentially the FujiFilm website, where you can select the type of prints you want and the surface on which to print them. 4-by-6-inch prints cost a reasonable 19 cents each. It features a clear and simple interface, but dedicated options like Mpix offer more printing options. Additionally, sending pictures to CVS or Walmart provides the option of same-day pickup.
A final quick word about help: I'm not a big fan of Adobe's web-only help system. I'd love to be able to search within the application for help on tools and techniques. Even a user-guide-type offline help document would be an improvement.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Adobe)
Adobe Photoshop Elements
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
For amateurs who want to get creative with their images, Adobe Photoshop Elements is the best game in town. It offers a generous subset of Photoshop's features in a simpler, more economical package, providing numerous Guided Edits to help you navigate the more complex processes. The app also gains some nifty new generative AI features. It easily earns our Editors' Choice award for enthusiast-level photo editing software, despite Adobe discontinuing its one-time licensing model. Pros, of course, can still benefit from upgrading to the more advanced Adobe Photoshop. And if you are interested in photography only and none of the extra creativity tools, look to Adobe Lightroom.
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About Our Expert
I've been testing PC and mobile software for more than 20 years, focusing on photo and video editing, operating systems, and web browsers. Prior to my current role, I covered software and apps for ExtremeTech and headed up PCMag’s enterprise software team. I’ve attended trade shows for Microsoft, Google, and Apple and written about all of them and their products.
I still get a kick out of seeing what's new in video and photo editing software, and how operating systems change over time. I was privileged to byline the cover story of the last print issue of PC Magazine, the Windows 7 review, and I’ve witnessed every Microsoft misstep and win, up to the latest Windows 11.
I’m an avid bird photographer and traveler—I’ve been to 40 countries, many with great birds! Because I’m also a classical music fan and former performer, I’ve reviewed streaming services that emphasize classical music.
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