Adobe offers a wide range of tools, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are two options that have very similar features. If you don’t know much about Photoshop Elements, this article will provide valuable insights to help you determine which of the two options is best for you.
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Unless you haven’t paid any attention to technology in the last 30 years, you probably know what Photoshop is—it’s Adobe’s flagship image editing software. While it originally came as a disc you bought (and owned) to install on your computer, it now exists as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud package.
Photoshop is primarily designed for photo editing, but you can also create GIF animations in Photoshop for short videos, illustrations, or web design. Photoshop sits alongside Adobe Lightroom as a photographer's best toolset.
Using Photoshop, you can create collages, make light or professional edits to images, use the ever-expanding Adobe AI tools built into the software, or even just crop and straighten images. Photoshop's options are nearly limitless.
This software is not as popular as the main desktop version of Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop Elements is a one-time paid software that has many of the features found in Photoshop, but with some cuts.
Photoshop Elements is available on desktop, browser, and mobile devices, so you can access it anywhere you can log in regardless of whether you have the software installed on your system or not.
Photoshop Elements includes some AI tools, but not as many as the main version of the software. You can edit photos using filters and effects, make quick edits, combine photos, resize and rearrange images and elements, and add text.
Both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are accessible via desktop, web browser, or mobile apps for the same major operating systems and platforms, but the cost for each is different. Elements is in beta for web and mobile at the time of writing.
Adobe Photoshop is part of Adobe Creative Cloud, which follows a subscription-based pricing model. While there are many subscription options, the cost adds up over time for long-term users, which is often a reason why people don't want to subscribe to Creative Cloud.
To sign up for just Photoshop, you’ll pay $22.99/month on an annual contract. There’s also a Photography Plan that includes access to Photoshop, Lightroom, and Firefly, which costs $9.99 or $19.99/month depending on cloud storage.
The Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan, which includes all 20+ Adobe software included in Creative Cloud, costs $19.99, $59.99, or $89.99 per month on an annual contract, depending on your subscription type (student, professional, business). If you cancel or choose not to renew your plan, you will lose access to the software.
Adobe Photoshop Elements runs on a different pricing model reminiscent of older Adobe software, where you own the program outright. Photoshop Elements lets you own the software for 3 years - a license that offers a sense of security that's far superior to monthly subscription plans tied to annual contracts.
You can buy a three-year license for Photoshop Elements for $99.99, and if you're upgrading an existing license, it'll cost just $79.99. You can also buy the Adobe Elements Bundle, which includes both Photoshop and Premiere Elements — for video editing and photo editing — for a total of $149.99, or a discounted $119.99 to upgrade an existing license.
Photoshop is a powerful editing tool that allows you to create anything you can imagine. Here are some of its best features:
Generative AI features arrived in Photoshop in 2023 with the introduction of Adobe Firefly in most of Adobe's software. Photoshop received the bulk of Generative AI tools, in the form of Generative Expand, Generative Fill, and Remove Distractions.
The tool's older AI tools are also great, such as Subject Selection and Neural Filters (which use Machine Learning combined with AI).
You'll find layers in many Adobe programs—including Photoshop Elements—but the nature of Photoshop allows you to use an infinite number of large layers.
You can create amazing photo manipulations, collages, animations, non-destructive editing, and AI content using Photoshop layers. The Layers panel is a prominent part of the Photoshop workflow, easy to navigate and use.
Photoshop really shines when it comes to simple ways to edit photos. You can use the Adjustment tools located in the Image tab or as an adjustment layer in the Layers panel to change your image in a myriad of ways. Adjustments affect color, lighting, contrast, tone, and more.
Along with the many ways to adjust your images, using Photoshop's extended blend modes on layers gives you more flexibility. There are also blend modes in Photoshop Elements, but Photoshop offers more modes with more control over the results.
Although Photoshop Elements is streamlined compared to the main software, it offers some great features to its users.
Photoshop Elements Quick Tools let you apply multiple edits to your images with speed and precision. You can select an entire subject area using AI selection, then realistically recolor the selected object, all in a minute or less.
This is just one of the Quick Tools, the menu offers many more, such as depth blur, smart fix, background tools, subject selection tools and color options, etc.
Guided Edit features in Photoshop Elements help you move through a sequence to achieve the best results using certain features. Perfect Portrait tools let you edit photos in the right order to achieve subtle but effective improvements to portraits.
The Perfect Portrait tools include skin smoothing, teeth whitening, the ability to open and close eyes, remove blemishes, straighten or align heads, and more. The results are subtle enough to not look over-edited, similar to what you can achieve using the AI portrait plugin in Photoshop.
Photoshop Elements isn’t like Adobe Express or Canva , but it does offer a number of design templates for creating collages, slideshow presentations, or simple photo collages for a variety of uses. The template library isn’t as extensive as other software, but it’s nice to have the option built into the app.
While you can animate GIFs in Photoshop, many people are surprised to find a small library of animated elements in Photoshop Elements.
Photoshop Elements 2025 introduces four new animated elements—a tiny flashing heart, a glitter overlay, an animated pink frame, and a subtle zoom effect—that can add that extra touch you didn't realize your images needed.
While the editing tools are basic, you can mask out areas of your image to choose how and where your animation appears. Each motion graphic comes with a small soundtrack to add some fun.
For most users who want to do a lot of photo editing, Adobe’s flagship desktop software Photoshop is the better choice. While it can be expensive, the tools and features available are unmatched. The price is negligible compared to the results and flexibility that Photoshop offers.
For a non-subscription tool, Photoshop Elements doesn’t offer enough to beat out non-Adobe competitors like Canva. While it has some creative uses, it doesn’t offer much more than you’ll get elsewhere for free or for less. This is especially true if you’re trying to avoid paying for the entire Adobe suite, whether it’s a subscription or a long-term license.
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