[UPDATE (Sept. 21st) — Right on time, Elements 9 is now shipping!]
[UPDATE (9/20/2011) — Photoshop Elements 10 has been released.]
With our post last week for five hours of free tutorials for Elements 7 and 8, it begged the question – when will Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9 be available?
Adobe historically ships a new version of Elements every year, in the fall – but when exactly? Let’s do some digging and find the release schedules for recent versions:
| Version | Announce Date | Ship Date | Based On | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| * Our estimate | ||||
| Elements 6 | Sept. 24, 2007 | Sept. 24, 2007 | CS3 | Windows, Mac |
| Elements 7 | Aug. 26, 2008 | Oct. 6, 2008 | CS3/CS4 | Windows |
| Elements 8 | Sept. 23, 2009 | Sept. 23, 2009 | CS4 | Windows, Mac |
| Elements 9 | Sept. 22, 2010* | Sept. 22, 2010* | CS5 | Windows, Mac* |
Funny things happened in 2008 with the launch of CS4 happening around the same time (September 23) – but if you exclude that occasion then the trend is definitely for the Elements release date happening in late September, just after back-to-school. Also, Adobe has shipped both Mac and Windows versions for six out of the eight Photoshop Elements releases, and lately Adobe has demonstrated increasing Mac support in other products, so we believe we’ll see both platforms supported again for Photoshop Elements 9.0.
So put it all together and we forecast that Photoshop and Premiere Elements 9 will ship on or about September 22, 2010, with PSE9 available on both Windows and Mac OS.
We’re giving away free copies of Photoshop Elements 9 – win yours!
One question remains: what is likely to be in the new products? The current Elements 8 was largely inherited from CS4, so with CS5 out now we should see some nice innovations. Some have wondered if we might be so lucky to see “wow” additions like Content-Aware Fill or Puppet Warp coming in Photoshop Elements 9 – but our sense is these new features are a bit too fresh and flagship to move down to Elements at this time, and Adobe will likely keep them as “must-have” functions in Photoshop CS5 at least until CS6 and Photoshop Elements 10, which could arrive together in the fall of 2011.
To see the feature addition history for the last three releases of Elements, you can compare the different versions of: Photoshop Elements for Windows, Photoshop Elements for Mac, or Premiere Elements. What would you like to see in PSE 9 and PRE 9?
Check our track record for forecasting other major Adobe product releases like Creative Suite 5, Lightroom 3, and Acrobat 10.
[UPDATE (Sept. 21st) — Right on target: Elements 9 is has been released! Win a free box.]
Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, exactly date is 26.09.2010 – for garantie!
Hi fotograf, thanks for your comment and for tossing your hat into the forecasting ring… 9/26 is actually a Sunday and we believe Adobe will want to get the product out sooner rather than later for the back-to-school season, so we’re going to stick with our current estimate for a Photoshop Elements 9 release date of September 22, 2010.
actually photoshop elements 9 is coming out on 26.09.2010, i can assure you prodesign
OK proart, that’s great and also helpful, thanks very much for your comment and input. So now we have two votes for Sunday, September 26th, and one for Wednesday, September 22nd. In any event, we’re all pretty close and in the same timeframe, within a week. Do we have other votes?
I heard somewhere that Adobe releases odd versions of Elements for Windows only, and even versions for Windows and Mac.
Hi, thanks for passing that along. Yes, we’ve seen this theory kicking around as well, but it’s a common misconception… Adobe has no such policy on the matter, and it’s just how the past few releases have turned out. If you go back a few years to the earlier history of Photoshop Elements, Adobe released versions for both Windows and Mac for many years, both even and odd numbers.
Note the very large biennial photo show in Cologne (Köln), photokina. Runs from 21 September through 26 September this year.
26 September would not, then, be such an odd date. I have no specific info, just noting plausibility of the 26th.
Greetings GJL, and thanks for your great observation. You’re right, a big show is always a good catalyst and showcase for a new product announcement – so it would make sense if Adobe announced the next version of Elements in conjunction with a major photography show. photokina is “the world’s leading fair for photography and imaging.”
Typically when companies do big announcements around tradeshows, they put them on or near the first days of the shows to get the most buzz and life out of the news… By the last days of the shows, there are usually fewer people around and less excitement in the air. That’s what the marketing experts advise, anyway. So arguably that would put more weight towards a possible product release in the September 21-23 timeframe.
Greets from germany,
for photoshop elements 9, i would prefer full 16bit picture workflow and layer masks – corel paint shop pro can do this for the same price. and of course acr with more activated options (like lightroom). i don´t need puppet warp, but content aware fill is cool and helps to save time.
Hallo Daniel, thank you for your thoughts! Another big question is whether PSE 9 will include native 64-bit support, and possibly come in two versions – 32-bit and 64-bit, similar to how Photoshop CS5 and CS4 have done…
Of course, Premiere Pro CS5 is already 64-bit-only, so that increases the odds of a 64-bit-capable PRE 9.
The good news is, if our release estimate is right, we won’t have too much longer to wait to find out for sure.
argh, forgotten to activate email for followup comments
@ProDesignTools
Hmm, i need no 64Bit support, cause you get problems with your plugins you already got. in my opinion, adobe should go 32-bit with elements and 16bit with the pictures ;)
What would I like to see in Photoshop Elements. I would like to see full 16-bit range for colors. I have an old Canon 6 MB DSLR that does 12-bit files. I bought this in 2004. I would like to do a panoramic with 3 exposures on each view. But in the panoramic tools and in layers, I have to convert to 8-bit mode. This is also true in PSE 8 with the new blend. What is the use of using three exposures if the tool loses 2, 4, or 8 bits in the color? Yes I may reduce the mode to 8 bits for final outputs, but I should not have to do it at the beginning of the process.
Just found this link on Adobe’s site about Photoshop Elements 9:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/using/topics.html
Do you think this is a hidden page that I stumbled upon?
PSE 9 will come with layers, saveable selections and a new selection tool. 16-bit I’m not quite sure.
Sorry, no new selection tool. Made a mistake.
@Eduardo – PSE already has layers – you mean layer masks, right??
@Jeff
I found a website where Photoshop Elements 9 is to be announced at Photokina 2010 on 21st September 2010.
There is some review of what’s new in it.
They made a mistake, I found it in the Google Cache. It’s not there anymore but PSE 9 is supposed to be released tomorrow !
I think that this is a pretty clear indicator that Photoshop Elements 9 is just around the corner:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/using/topics.html
Thank you Al, Eduardo, Bestter, and Logan for your informative and helpful comments, which appear to confirm what we’ve been forecasting here for a while – that Photoshop Elements 9 could be out early this week!
And now that it might be shipping soon, if you’d like the chance to win it for free we’re giving away 3 shiny new shrinkwrapped boxes of PSE 9 here.
@Daniel
yes, layer masks, I forgot to say
Great post by Barbara Brundage about Photoshop Elements 9:
http://barbarabrundage.com/2010/09/21/photoshop-elements-9
As you may know Premiere Elements 9 has been released.
Does Elements 9 have the History brush?
@John
I’m sure it does, check the Adobe Blog for specs.
http://blogs.adobe.com/edtechatadobe/2010/09/photoshop-elements-9-premiere-elements-9.html
Thanks. Actually, the History Brush is one feature that Photoshop Elements (including versions 9 and 10) has not had… So, to get this you need to buy the full Photoshop CS5.
Here’s some more information on the differences between Photoshop Elements 10 and Photoshop CS5.