Adobe Announces Photoshop Elements 8.0

Adobe has just announced the release of the latest version of its lightweight photo editing software Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0, which will be available for Windows and Mac. The software should become available next month, priced at $99.99, but users can already pre-order it. Windows users in the US will also be able to subscribe to the Plus online service, which will offer 20 GB of space and access to online tutorials and other resources for $49.99 per month.

“With nearly 20 years of Photoshop innovation under our belt, we are able to leverage industry-leading technology that the professionals use and make it accessible to our Elements customers,” said Doug Mack, vice president and general manager of Consumer and Hosted Solutions at Adobe. “We've simplified the editing process, without taking away any of the power, and incorporated smart tools with built-in intelligence to bring once difficult tasks, within reach of everyone.”

Photoshop Elements has a rather different target audience than Adobe's better-known Photoshop but also a much smaller price tag. The software is intended for regular and casual users who still want some more advanced features than what they get in most photo managers and editors. Photoshop Elements 8 features an improved Organizer, making it easier to find photos and videos, and also the Auto-Analyzer, which automatically tags the media depending on its quality. It also features a face recognition technology, similar to Google's recently launched Picasa 3.5, called People Recognition, which pretty much does what the name says – it automatically identifies people in the photos and tags them accordingly.

On the editing front, Elements 8 also has some interesting new features like Photomerge Exposure, which takes several shots of the same scene and merges them to create a better-looking photo especially for the ones taken in poor lighting conditions. A couple of new tools for fixing up less than perfect photos have also been added. One aspect that Adobe stresses is the new online service Plus, which offers storage space for backup and also a regular stream of tutorials, tips and tricks and templates accessible from inside the program itself.

There are plenty of screenshots of the new Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows right here.