ElementsXXL adds more than 2200 powerful features to Photoshop Elements for Windows that were previously only available in Photoshop. It also adds more than 1000 new features to Photoshop. These features are included as 650 presets, 350 new menu items, 100 dialogs, 160 icons, 30 key shortcuts and 12 panels, so they seamlessly integrate into the user interface of Photoshop Elements. Additionally all ElementsXXL dialogs and controls use a skin that makes them looks like a part of Photoshop Elements. ElementsXXL bridges the gap between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop and greatly enhances the image editing experience in Photoshop Elements.

 

Feature Overview

ElementsXXL adds many new and extremely useful features to Photoshop Elements. With ElementsXXL it is possible to work with actions, scripts, smart objects, smart filters, layer groups, channels, slices, quick masks, vector masks, paths and layer masks in Photoshop Elements. ElementsXXL provides up to 33 new filters and 10 new adjustment layers, e.g. Range Adjust, Curves, Vibrance, Color Balance, Channel Mixer, Black & White, Selective Color, Color Match, Color Lookup, Auto Lens Correction, Micro Contrast, Blur Gallery, Lighting Effects and HDR Toning. It also offers up to 15 new tools, e.g. Pen, Puppet Warp, Mixer Brush, Ruler, Slice / Slice Select, Perspective Crop and History Brush.

ElementsXXL lets you open multiple files as layers and save each layer as a separate file again. This is the basis for tools for performing the tasks with the help of multiple image files like denoising high ISO shots, Depth of Field Increase, HDR creation, combining Light Trail photos, preparing a manual composition, multiple exposure effects, panorama stitching, object removal, underexposure fixing, removing details and increasing resolution.

ElementsXXL enables editing adjustment layer settings directly on the Adjustments panel. Its Auto-Align/Auto-Blend Layers features recompose portraits, create panoramas and increase the depth of macro shots. The Channels, Paths and Properties panels allow editing channels, vector paths and mask properties. The Brush panel offers 80 new brush properties for 22 tools. You can soft proof images, convert color profiles and save the image as a CMYK PDF. ElementsXXL also extends the Shadows/Highlights filter with 7 new options and supplies a Color Range feature for sophisticated masking. Furthermore, there are Fit Image, Image Size and New Guide Layout dialogs as in Photoshop, new text layer features, Quick Export and Save in Background options and many other possibilities. The Replace Background assistent even allows masking fine hair. The Fade/Blend Pro dialogs offer 36 new blend modes and opacity values beyond 100%.

 

Extending the Photoshop Elements UI

ElementsXXL supplies more than 1850 new features to Photoshop Elements 11 and higher as well as 800 features to Photoshop. ElementsXXL extends the menus of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements with a lot of menu items and sub menus.

It also adds various icons, icon bars and other controls to the Layers panel, control bar, tool bar and tool options bar in Photoshop Elements. Nine new content-aware options are offered, e.g. for the Crop tool, Transform tool, Warp tool, Perspective Warp tool, Canvas Size dialog and Custom Rotation dialog. Moreover, ElementsXXL provides more than two dozen key shortcuts known from Photoshop.

The ElementsXXL Preference dialog contains an option to highlight all ElementsXXL features with a light blue background, which is activated by default, so that the user immediately sees which menu items and controls are supplied by ElementsXXL.

 

Enhanced 16-bit Image Editing

ElementsXXL provides a workaround for the missing layer support for 16-bit images in Photoshop Elements: The Render features converts a 16-bit image to a 8-bit document with a smart object containing the 16-bit image data. After adding smart filters, adjustment layers, other smart objects with 16-bit image data and tool layer, you can finally render everything to a new 16-bit image again.

ElementsXXL also enhances 16-bit image processing with new features. It allows you to switch between 8-bit and 16-bit mode as well as apply up to 29 more tools and 27 new filters to 16-bit images.

The Color Range, Focus Area, Calculations, Quick Mask Mode and Shadows / Midtones / Highlight selection features of ElementsXXL enable sophisticated masking for 16-bit images. Additionally the channels of an RGB image can be edited individually and used for masking with the new Channels panel. The Curves, Channel Mixer, Exposure, Vibrance, Color Balance, Selective Color, Black & White, Fade, Apply Image, Blur Gallery and Lighting Effects filters provide additional value for 16-bit image editing. In Photoshop Elements 13 and higher you can additionally use the Puppet Warp, Warp and Perspective Warp effects as well as vector masks on 16-bit images.

 

What Makes ElementsXXL So Special

ElementsXXL fully integrates into the user interface of Photoshop Elements and uses the same visual look for controls and dialogs, so it feels like an upgrade to Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and not like a plugin. Other products that extend Photoshop Elements consist of simple actions or are limited to a dialog that blocks the user interface. So they are far less efficient, easy to use and flexible than ElementsXXL.

There is no other product for Photoshop Elements that adds new Layers panels features, lets you run Photoshop scripts directly, allows applying so many third-party smart filters, offers Channels, Path, Properties, Scopes and Brush panels, lets you edit its adjustment layers on the Adjustments panel as well as offers enhanced Curves and multiple Warp effects. Other unique features of ElementsXXL are color profile conversion, saving CMYK image files, 16-bit versions of existing filters, processing 16-bit images with smart filters and adjustment layers, 29 additional tools for retouching 16-bit images as well as Crop and Image Size preset features.

But ElementsXXL also offers several features that are not even available in Photoshop itself, e.g. 13 additional curves, Equalize and Adjust features for Curves, a Range Adjust filter and adjustment layer, a Color Replace adjustment layer, Fade/Blend Pro features, an Auto-Saturation feature, a Scopes panel, 7 additional content-aware options, a frequency seperation feature, a selection from the saturation channel, creating guides around a selection and the ability to record filter effects as color lookup files. ElementsXXL also allows applying many 8-bit filters to images with 16-bit per channel.

 

Upgrade Options

Version 12 Upgrade: Registered users of ElementsXXL who bought it in May 2024 or later can upgrade to version 12 for free. Other users have to upgrade for $24.95. Please contact us with your order details.