Adobe’s simple-to-use editing software suites, Photoshop Elements 2020 and Premiere Elements 2020, have been given a number of “exciting” new features and tools. While most of these add-ons have been available in the much more advanced Creative Cloud software suites of editing programs for several years, the Adobe Elements 2020 software is oriented more towards those new to the worlds of image and video editing.

As such, Adobe has added several new tutorials to both programs. With a total of 55 Guided Edits, Adobe Photoshop 2020 adds two new videos. The first shows how to remove distracting objects from a composition. The second gives intructions on adding patterns like hearts, stars, and others.

Adobe Premiere Elements 2020 has 23 Guided Edits and adds three new videos. Alongside time-lapse and background sky replacements, a third Guided Edit video will show how to transform vertical clips or add photos with different aspect ratios to horizontal videos.

Last year, Adobe introduced the Elements Home Screen user interface to keep photo and video elements organized. For 2020, they have added four somewhat self-explanatory “Auto Creations” tools to the Elements Home Screen, including Black & White Selection, Pattern Brush, Painterly and Depth of Field.

A new FujiFilm Prints & Gifts service gives direct order of prints, wall art, phone accessories and more than 140 other print options from within the interface.

Adobe’s artificial-intelligence Sensei AI technology is seeing more usage in both programs. In Photoshop Elements 2020, the AI automatically detects and selects photo subjects. Like magic wand selections, Sensei then gives one-click selections to cut out subjects for pasting to other images without complicated layering or masking.

It also gives one-click photo colorizations and monochromatic desaturations. They’ve added Sensei-based skin smoothing for fast beauty adjustments.

In Premiere Elements 2020, Smart Tags also uses Adobe Sensei to notate subjects, and it will also learn faces over time so that it’s easy to find people, places and things just by searching. Videos can be “stacked” by faces so that it’s easier to group together potential footage for edits. A new Reduce Noise slider improves grainy video.

In addition to being easier to use, another advantage that the otherwise elementary image editing programs have over Adobe Creative Cloud is the pricing.

Creative Cloud Photoshop and Lightroom subscriptions start at $119.88 a year, while the the entire suite of programs, which includes Adobe’s professional video editing and effects software, Premiere Pro and After Effects, is $599.88 a month. 

Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements 2020, on the other hand, are available respectively at a single purchase price of $99.99 each. Bundling the two, the programs are only $149. A free trial is also available.