Adobe Photoshop Elements review: Friendly photo editor gains more AI tools in 2026 update

Photoshop Elements is a photo editing software with a user-friendly interface designed for casual users and amateur photographers. It offers a range of powerful tools, including advanced features that use artificial intelligence to simplify editing tasks, without the complexity of the professional Photoshop version.

While it isn’t the cheapest photo-editing program available for Mac users, it’s long been one of the most popular thanks to its combination of powerful editing tools – based, of course, on the professional, high-end version of Photoshop – and a well designed interface that makes it easy for beginners to achieve impressive results.

The update for 2026 isn’t a massive upgrade but – inevitably – it includes a number of new features that use AI to speed up the editing process, as did the update for 2025. However, the changes to Adobe’s pricing that came with the 2025 update might not appeal to everyone. We’ll run through the changes for 2026 below before discussing some of the best features of Photoshop Elements.

Photoshop Elements – What is new for 2026?

It won’t come as any surprise that the 2026 update for Photoshop Elements – released in October 2025 – leans heavily into AI. In fact, you no longer even have to bother taking photos of your own as the program now uses Adobe’s Firefly technology to provide generative AI features that can create entirely new photos and artwork for you.

To create a new image you first need to create a blank document of the required size – a detail that isn’t clearly explained in the program’s Help files (Adobe needs to tidy up its documentation for new users who may not be familiar with Photoshop Elements). Once that’s done you can simply click on the new Generate Image tool in the program’s main toolbar, which activates a series of options that are displayed at the bottom of the screen.

There’s a text box where you can type a prompt – such as ‘Zebra running down the road’ – and you can either choose to create a photo-realistic image, or a more stylised image that looks like hand-drawn artwork. Then you simply click the Generate button and let Photoshop Elements create your desired image, along with four variations that you can choose from.

You can also use generative AI to add new elements to existing photos, using the new Insert Object tool. This activates a brush tool that allows you to mark an area on your photo where you want to add a new object, and then you type in another prompt to describe the object that you want – such as ‘flying banana’. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with – but there’s a sting in the tail, as these generative AI features are not completely free to use.

Photoshop Elements does give you 25 ‘generative credits’ per month for free, but after that you need to pay for a Firefly subscription, which starts at $9.99/£9.98 per month for 2,000 credits. It’s annoying, though, that this cost isn’t clearly highlighted when you’re using the generative AI tools in Photoshop Elements, with only a Learn More entry for generative credits tucked away within the program’s Help menu.

Fortunately, Photoshop Elements 26 doesn’t just focus on fancy AI features. It also provides some more down-to-earth tools that will help new users and speed up routine editing tasks. The program has used AI – that doesn’t require you to buy extra credits – to update tools such as Restore Photo, which can be used to remove scratches and marks of wear and tear from old scanned photos.

The Remove tool (introduced in the 2025 update) has been updated, making it easier to remove people or other objects from the background of a photo. The option to remove the entire background of a photo has also been improved, working automatically so that you don’t have to spend so much time painting around the main subject in the foreground of the image before removing the background.

The Crop tool has been modified so that it’s easier to select the part of an image that you want to remove or keep, and even the program’s Tool Tips have been updated, providing additional information about each tool when you hover the mouse over the toolbar.

There have been changes to the pricing structure as well, as is often the case when the software is updated. See the pricing section below for more information.

Photoshop Elements – What was new in 2025?

There weren’t a large number of new features in the 2025 edition of Photoshop Elements, that arrived in late 2024, but Adobe did add a number of AI features that quickly perform some very complex tasks.

The Remove tool that can remove people or objects from a photo arrived with the 2025 update. The AI-powered Remove tool works really well, even with photos that include several people standing in front of complex, multi-coloured backgrounds.

Taking this approach further, the new Guided Edit called Combine Photos allows you to select the foreground subject from one photo and the background from another photo and combine them to create a new image. This was a little more complicated to use, though, and I sometimes found myself selecting the background or foreground subject from the wrong photo, so a little more clarity in the instructions wouldn’t go amiss.

More straightforward are the new AI features in the Quick Action menu within Quick mode. These can provide motion effects, such as zooming the camera in or out, or panning from side to side, and then allow you to export the animated image as an MP4 video file. There are pulsing hearts to declare your love for someone on TikTok, as well as animated frames and particle effects to liven up your posts.

So while this wasn’t a major upgrade there are key features, such as the new Remove tool, which make the program more powerful than ever before.

Our top Photoshop Elements features

Here are a few of our favourite feature that have appeared in Photoshop Elements over the years.

Editing Modes

A key element, so to speak, of Photoshop Elements is that it provides three different editing modes, which are suitable for users with different levels of experience. At the top of the program’s main editing window there are three tabs – Quick, Guided and Advanced – which provide different sets of tools.

If you’re a beginner, or you just want to perform some quick edits to tidy up a photo, then you can click the Quick tab. This takes you into a simple workspace with a basic set of tools for common editing tasks, such as cropping an image, correcting red-eye, or adding text.

There’s also a Quick Actions panel on the right of the window that provides a series of one-click tools that can instantly perform more complex tasks, including color correction, adjusting exposure, or even removing the entire background from a photo. Most of these are one-click tools that work automatically, but there are also simple slider controls that provide more precise control over lighting, color and other settings.

More experienced users who really want to edit their photos in fine detail can select the Advanced tab instead, which opens up the program’s entire array of advanced editing. As well as providing a vast library of filters and effects that can alter the appearance of the entire photo, Advanced mode also includes precise tools for editing and manipulating individual pixels within the image, and using layers to combine multiple effects and objects within a single image.

It’s a bit of a leap, though, to go from Quick mode to Advanced mode, so Photoshop Elements also includes a Guided mode, which includes a series of Guided Edits that provide step-by-step help so that less experienced users can learn how to use some of the program’s more advanced tools. These include Guided Edits for adding text and other effects, creating panoramic photos, or using pan and zoom effects to make your photos look more dynamic.

Sensei / AI

Adobe’s 2022 version introduced new artificial intelligence techniques – which Adobe refers to as Sensei – which could automatically perform editing tasks that might normally require hours of work.

The app has always had a selection of filter effects that could make photos look like paintings, using media such as oil paints or watercolors, but Sensei introduced a new set of Artistic effects that aim to mimic a variety of popular artistic styles, such as cubist and post-impressionist. These aren’t always entirely successful – I suspect Vincent Van Gogh is spinning in his grave right now – but they’re fun to experiment with. One nice touch here is that you can apply the artistic effect to the entire photo, or just to the subject or background, which is a nice way of emphasizing particular aspects of a photo. If your artistic ambitions are a little more modest you can apply some simple animated effects – known as Overlays – such as falling snowflakes or flickering flames, to your photos and then save your work as a short video clip that you can upload to social media.

The use of Sensei artificial intelligence continued with Photoshop Elements 2023. As well as applying animated overlays to an entire photo, this feature allows you to create moving elements that animate just one specific section within a photo. You could select part of an image, such as a waterfall or the flowing mane of a horse, and animate your selection to make the image look more dynamic and eye-catching. The program’s selection tools can help you to select either the background of an image, or elements in the foreground, and you can simply draw a line to indicate the direction of movement (so the waterfall flows down, rather than upwards). You can also adjust settings such as the speed of movement, and preview the animation effect before exporting the animated image file as an MP4 video clip or as an animated-GIF.

Guided Edits

One of the things that sets Photoshop Elements apart from many of its rivals is its use of Guided Edits, which give you step-by-step help in using some of the app’s most powerful tools. One really powerful Guided Edit that was introduced in 2021’s update is the ability to alter the aspect ratio of a photo by extending the background of a photo. If you’ve got a photo with an attractive background, such as a beach or some leafy trees then you can clone part of the background and use it to extend the background further – perhaps to turn a square photo into a wider landscape shot, or to extend a sunny blue sky upwards for an upright portrait shot that you can use on social media.

And, of course, no social media account is complete without some cute pet pics, so Photoshop Elements includes a Guided Edit specifically for enhancing photos of animals. You can adjust the lighting and color in a photo, focusing either on your pet or the background, or add a subtle vignette effect. There’s also an option to remove blemishes, such as mud or dirt, and to remove glare from the pet’s eyes.

The Guided Edits section of the program also gained new tools for adding overlays, new background images, or enhancing the appearance of the sky in your photos. And, with so many Guided Edits now available, we were pleased to see that this update added a new Search tool that helps you to quickly locate the Guided Edits you need by searching for keywords such as ‘crop’ or ‘sky’.

In the 2024 edition, a new Guided Edit called Add Text, made it easier to use the program’s text tools and effects. You can quickly add horizontal or vertical text, apply text to a selection, or make text follow a path that you draw with a freehand pen. You can add drop shadows, graduated colours and other effects with a quick click of your mouse, and even change the angle of lighting that you apply to the text. And, for social media mavens, there’s a new Photo Reels tool, which is similar to an old-fashioned slide-show that flicks through a series of photos, but is very much focused on social media and provides a series of templates for use on Instagram, Tiktok and other services. When you create a Photo Reel you see a simple timeline view that allows you to arrange photos in sequence, adjust the size and aspect ratio of each photo. You can also adjust the playback speed of the photo reel, and add text, graphics and filter effects.

Quick Actions

Quick Actions panel is available within the program’s Quick editing mode. The Quick Actions panel gathers together a number of existing editing tools, but also gains new AI features, such as the ability to quickly select or change the background or sky in an image, or to smooth out fuzzy artefacts in compressed JPG files.

For a selection of the best free photo editors for Mac see our Best free image editors round up. We also have a round-up of the best alternatives to Photoshop in our Best professional photo editors round-up.

Also read: Best Mac for photo editing and Adobe Creative Cloud pricing: How to get the best deal.

How much does Photoshop Elements cost?

Most of Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, are aimed at professional users and require a monthly or annual subscription. However, Photoshop Elements is aimed at hobbyists and casual users, so it has traditionally been available for a one-time fee of $99.99/£86.99.

That price didn’t change with the 2025 edition, but instead of paying a one-time fee that lets you use the program for as long as you want, Adobe now grants you a ‘three-year term license’ instead. In effect, you’re paying for a three-year subscription, which sounds a little disappointing at first. However, it does mean that you should get the next three updates free of charge, which is still pretty good value for money when spread over three years.

If you own Photoshop Elements 2025 then your license will allow you to upgrade to this 2026 edition automatically. However, many people dislike the idea of software subscriptions – especially with hidden extras such as Adobe’s ‘generative credits’. So while Photoshop Elements remains one of the most powerful photo-editing tools for home users and hobbyists, it’s still worth considering some of the best photo-editors that offer less expensive subscriptions – or a simple one-time purchase with no subscription required at all.

Owners of previous versions can also upgrade to the 2026 edition for $79.99/£70.99, and you can also buy Photoshop Elements together with the Premiere Elements (read our review) video-editor for $149.99/£130.49 (which again is for a three-year license). Beware though, as the version that is currently on sale in the Mac App Store (at the time of writing) is still the 2025 edition from last year, so Adobe’s own website is the best place to buy at the moment. There’s a 30-day trial available so that you can experiment for a while before buying

Buying the desktop version of Photoshop Elements also gives you access to its companion mobile app for iOS and Android, and a web app that runs in a browser on any device. The mobile app allows you to upload photos and videos from your smartphone or tablet, and also provides you with 2GB of free online storage for your files. You can then quickly import these files into the desktop versions of Photoshop Elements when you’re ready to get down to some serious editing work. The web app works in a similar fashion, and also includes some simple tools for quickly creating slideshows and collages without having to use the full version of Photoshop Elements. Just remember that both the mobile and web apps are still in their beta test phase, so make sure you keep backups of your photos and files just in case.

There’s also a free seven-day trial available, so that you can download the program and try out the new features before buying.

Should you buy Photoshop Elements?

Photoshop Elements is one of the best photo-editing tools for amateur photographers and hobbyists. Its great strength is that it provides admirable ease of use for beginners, along with powerful and precise editing tools for more advanced users. The update for 2026 is not just about fancy AI features , you’ll also find down-to-earth tools and feature updates that will speed up routine editing tasks.