Two other neat features are the Photomerge Exposure and Recompose features. Seeming to build off of the panorama merge feature in CS4, Photomerge Exposure combines the best elements from different photos of the same scene to create a blended image. Recompose is capable of completely resizing and restructuring a photo without altering areas that the user deems important. (This was a feature that was a big selling point for Photoshop CS4 Extended.) This feature is also usable on photos used in templates - allowing the user to recompose a photo that's too large to fit a particular template.
Adobe AIR provides access to online tutorials for both Photoshop Elements 8 and Plus. The tutorials deal with a wide range of topics from keyframing to text, making collages to mapping photos to their geographic locations.
As far as the interface, Photoshop Elements 8 has added functionality features long coveted by pro users: tabbed browsing of open files, moveable and scalable panels and the ability to save custom, interface layouts for later use.
The Auto-Analyzer, People Recognition, and tags feature; as well as the Photomerge Exposure and Recompose Photo features are five of the most unique and, potentially, useful tools I've ever seen and really made me excited to test this software.
Used in tandem, the Auto-Analyzer, People Recognition and tags features alone have the potential to streamline file organization and free up time for the user, so that they can spend more time editing their photos. Unfortunately, "potential" doesn't always succeed in "practice". Of those three features, only the tags tool actually performs really well - allowing the user to tag their files with keywords for quick reference later. When used with the cloud button I mentioned before, file tracking and organization becomes intuitive and easy.
Auto-Analyzer and People Recognition, on the other hand, aren't quite as precise. For example, of the 15 personal photos that I loaded at least three were incorrectly labeled as "high quality", despite the obvious grain and blurriness of the photos. And while People Recognition chose to "identify" non-existent faces, it seemed unable to recognize profiles and most 3/4 poses.
Perhaps more curious than the arbitrariness of the tags, was that the Auto-Analyzer didn't automatically run after I imported my photos. In fact, on several occasions, I had to manually start Auto-Analyzer - a process that was supposed to begin as soon as I imported or selected files.
Photomerge Exposure and Recompose performed admirably. It’s cool to see them using stuff from the pro suite in the consumer version. The ability to quickly and, more often than not, realistically alter the background of an image while maintaining the integrity of the foreground is nothing short of remarkable,
