The brand-new Elements Home Screen that welcomes you every time you open Photoshop and Premiere Elements 2019 is the center of the changes introduced to Adobe’s apps for home users.

Adobe refers to it as “A Home Screen Designed for You”. It’s the first thing you’ll notice when opening either Photoshop Elements or Premiere Elements 2019. The brand-new Elements Home Screen welcomes you every time you open the apps. This new interface is designed so as to offer a personalized experience by surfacing info on what’s new since your last version of Elements and content suited to your level of expertise.

If it wasn’t for that and the name, you would probably not be immediately aware that you’re using the new version of either program. There is more under the hood, though, and from Redesigned photo collages to Guided edits, there are some changes. Adobe says that “beyond the Home Screen, there are a number of exciting new features and enhancements across Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2019 to help you create stunning photo creations, videos, and movies so that you can then quickly share your memories in print, DVDs, the web and across your social media channels.“

Auto Creations and Adobe Sensei AI

The 2019 release focuses on streamlining the apps’ usability to get you up and running quickly, improving performance across the board and discoverability enhancements so that you can get inspired, learn and uncover fun new projects to try out yourself. With automation being an important part of the move forward, this version features Auto Creations, “so beautiful photo and video slideshows and collages are automatically created just for you highlighting memorable moments like birthdays and vacations and delivered upon launch in the Home Screen. It’s all thanks to photo and video automation powered by Adobe Sensei AI technology.”

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019 specific updates include a redesign of the photo collages so users can create collages with fewer clicks and quickly choose from stylish new templates that look great as Instagram posts and more. You also have the ability to customize your photo collages by adding frames and changing up backgrounds for the perfect finishing touch.

New Guided Edits and Quick Edit Mode

Photoshop Elements 2019 also introduces four all-new Guided Edits, bringing the total to 53 step-by-step photo editing guides to help you quickly edit and create. Mixing photos with letters for special effects, making fun memes, turn part of a photo into a sketch or embellishing photos with borders and text are explained in the new guides.

The team at Adobe also worked hard to improve your experience with Photoshop Elements, and says that “you’ll notice it right off the bat with a faster download and installation process and improved performance throughout common photo editing tasks. We’ve also added support for importing and editing HEIF images on macOS.”

Premiere Elements 2019 users also have some new features, including a redesigned Quick Edit mode. Creating your movies is now easier than ever with the completely redesigned Quick Edit mode, says Adobe. The new, user-friendly, editing interface presents you with two options where automation takes control:

• Smart Trim, which automatically finds your best footage and walks you through a series of steps for trimming a video.
• A simplified Sceneline for combining clips, photos, titles, music and more into a unique production that you can then share on DVD, the web or social media.

Better performance in Premiere Elements 2019

Premiere Elements 2019 is introducing two all-new Guided Edits, bringing the total to 20 step-by-step video editing guides in Premiere Elements that help you get started.

• Make glass pane effects: This Guided Edit helps you make the action in your scene appear like its taking place behind the glass. You’ll learn how to add a video overlay to create this sleek look.
• Create Luma fade transitions: Add a professional looking dramatic scene transition, which walks you through the process of fading in the colors from darkest to lightest in your video creations.

This new version also promises better performance plus VFR, HEIC and HEVC support. Just like in Photoshop Elements, you’ll experience the same faster download and installation process and improved performance on common video editing tasks. We’ve also added support, says Adobe, “for variable frame rate (VFR), import and editing of HEIF images on macOS and HEVC video on macOS 10.13 and above.“