Adobe Photoshop Elements 4

However, there's a range of new power to compensate in the form of an excellent new correction command for producing realistic skin tone; an enhanced Crop tool that lets you swap between presets and orientations on-the-fly; and a new Straighten tool for correcting photos taken at an angle. Most impressive is the Magic Extractor for pulling out objects from their background ready for colour correcting or compositing. The Extractor dialog is based on the same technology as the Magic Selection Brush, but offers greater control and is much more successful as a result.

Once you've enhanced your photos and created your compositions in Elements' Editor window, it's back to the Organizer window to create more advanced projects to share. Here, the biggest change is to the Slide Show Editor, which now lets you add text, objects, audio, narration, transitions and advanced zoom and pan effects to your presentations before outputting them to WMV, VCD/DVD, or direct to TV (assuming you have one hooked up to a Windows Media Center system). Other improvements include better email-based workflow and the ability to import Outlook and vCard contacts. You can also now drag-and-drop photos to a dedicated Order Prints window to arrange professional output from Kodak, and the ability to upload collections and to invite family and friends to view them is more integrated and generally smoother.

Ultimately, Photoshop Elements 4 demands more from its users than alternatives such as Corel Photo Album, but it gives a lot more in return. By focusing on what users want to do with their photos and working out how best to help them do it, Adobe has come up with the best partner yet for your digital camera.

Author: Tom Arah