Expert Mode also has a generous selection of content, such as backgrounds,
frames, and shapes to spruce up a photograph. The Text tool lets you wrap text
around a shape so it doesn’t overlap important parts of an image. Character-
styling options are far less extensive than those in Photoshop, however.
Select Subject is a new tool for the 2020 version of Elements. It’s simply a
button that appears at the bottom panel when you’re using the selection brush;
it’s also available from the Select menu. It worked admirably on all but photos
with backgrounds that blended in with the subject using similar colors.
The Recompose tool is one of the program’s most impressive: It lets you change
the aspect ratio of an image without stretching or squashing faces and the like.
You can even remove selected objects and mark others for preserving.
Recompose did a good job of letting me move my big head closer to a friend
without distorting a test picture, though I did have to crop the photo to remove
a duplicate head.
You can also do standard Photoshop things, including blurring, sharpening, and
adding imagery. There’s a good selection of clipart, too. The spot-healing brush
does an excellent job at removing blemishes. I also removed a sign in the
background of a photo by brushing in the texture from a forest in the image
with the healing brush.