Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 was released earlier this week and we got to play around with it. We did our usual button pushing and knob twisting and wanted to share a couple of our favorite new features AND give away THREE copies of Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 to our readers.

Adobe scientists have spent their time finding ways to make Photoshop Elements better than ever before. We put together this post show you a couple of the cool new features (and some enchanced existing features).

We’re going to show you how you can use the new mobile folders to get photos from your phone into Elements Organizer, make some edits, and get the photo back onto your phone, within minutes.

First an overview of mobile folders.

Definitely our favorite new feature is the ability to have original, and edited photos, shared across all of our devices using the new mobile albums feature and the Adobe Revel app. It only takes a few minutes to get up and running.

First, you need to have the Adobe Revel app on your mobile device. The app is free. Install it, sign in with your Adobe ID, choose a subscription plan (revel premium is $59.99/year). Of course there is a 30 day trial period to play around and decide if it’s right for you.

A mobile albums demo.

You’ll see the new mobile albums control is in the left nav of the Elements Organizer. When you try and click it for the first time to get going it will make you log in with your Adobe ID. Hopefully you remember your ID. Here (or on your mobile device) is where you’ll now be able to add/remove folders and albums, move photos and videos around, and manage sharing your stuff with other devices that are connected to your Adobe ID.

Now it’s as simple as adding images and letting the cloud do it’s thing.

You can see how in the Elements Organizer that there’s nothing there, makes sense since I haven’t added anything yet. I click “Add Photos or Videos” and choose some stuff to add.

I add some photos to the folder on my mobile device, the system syncs automatically, and my photos appear on my computer ready to edit.

Once I add photos to my mobile folders, my images show up on every device that’s linked to my Adobe ID. Sweet.

Make some edits.

I like the photo of my daughter on the beach, but I want to make some tweaks. I can right click on the photo in the organizer and select “Edit with Photoshop Elements Editor…” and the photo will open in Elements Editor (duh) and be ready to edit.

Uh oh, after loading the image in the editor I can see that the photo is tilted. No problem, with three clicks I can straighten the image out.

Click 1: Expert mode. Click 2: Choose Leveling option. Click 3: Select Autofill edges. Then I drag my tool across the horizon, or something level in the photo, and Elements 12 levels the image.

An enhanced feature in Elements 12 is the autofill edges option in expert mode. If I just rotated the image I’d have white areas where the image previously ended, but autofill edges uses magic to make my photo look all nice nice and complete.

Now I crop the image down a little bit with the crop tool.

Enhanced Spot Healing Brush

Hmmmm, it looks good, but look at all the hypodermic needles and cigarette butts on the beach, I need to get rid of those (just kidding, it’s sticks and junk). Time to bust out the enhanced Spot Healing Brush. The spot healing brush is awesome, I paint on what I want to go away and Elements 12 makes it go away.

Since I was in there messing around, I got a little Spot Healing Brush crazy and wiped the beach clean, just for the heck of it. I know, I know, it looks TOO clean, but this is a demonstration folks.

NEW FEATURE – Effects, textures, and frames.

The Elements 12 team added cool stuff in Quick Mode like Effects (filters), Textures, and Frames that you can add with the click of a button. I wanted to add an effect to make this photo look old skool. I’m done in 2 clicks

Looks good. Now if I wanted i could add a texture to the image, or a frame, but I like the image the way it is. See the options below?

Since I’m pleased with the image I just save it. It goes back into the Organizer into my Mobile Album. Look, the original is preserved.  And 10 seconds later the edited image is on my mobile device. Check it.

And once it’s on my mobile device I can save it into a different album, share it on social media, or add it to my camera roll.

And that’s that. Pretty cool, right? Combining the power of mobile folders and quick editing modes in Elements 12 I pulled that image down, edited it, and had it back on my device in minutes. And you can too. It’s $99.99 to buy and $79.99 to upgrade.

The Giveaway.

OK, ok. You were either very patient and read all the way down here, or you cheated and scrolled right down, but regardless, here’s the giveaway.

We have THREE (3) copies of Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 to give away to 3 separate readers.

Do the stuff below that you have to do below to win and you might get your hot little hands on some brand new software.

Good Luck!

P.S. If you’re not a fan you have to click the Facebook LIKE button before clicking I’M A FAN or your entries are invalid. We have to check and disqualify you. We don’t want to, but we will.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be a good sport and follow Adobe Elements on their various social media channels.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PhotoshopElements
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdobeElements
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/photoshopelements
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/adobeelements

Disclosure: Dadand received review software and compensation to test and post about Adobe Photoshop Elements—a company whose products we love and use every. single. day. We believe in every product and service we review at Dadand, and promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.