Adobe Photoshop Elements 4

Photoshop Elements started life as a cut-down version of the professional Adobe Photoshop, catering for a less exacting audience on a budget. With version 4, Adobe has focused more on digital photographers.

The program not only collects together all the photos on your PC, but can add new images to the Elements catalogue as soon as they are copied into any monitored folder. You can search photos by metadata (dates and captions), colour and even by adding tags to the faces in each shot.

An integrated photo manager shows the catalogue complete with the time when the pictures were taken. Each picture can be displayed full screen, arranged into elaborate slideshows and two pictures can be shown side by side.

You can also stack images of the same subject, so they do not take up swathes of space in the thumbnail viewer.

Within the Photoshop Elements 4 editor, key new tools are extra Quick Fixes, a spot remover and an image extractor .You no longer have to select each eye to fix red-eye as the program finds them itself. This does not work for other eye effects, though, such as the green tint in cats' or dogs' eyes.

The spot remover tries to remove any unsightly blemishes from faces by using a circular cloning effect to replace the discoloured areas with texture from related areas close by. It is not terribly effective because you have to pick your source area very carefully.

The image extractor is now more intelligent. By marking the areas of an image you want to remove and those you want to keep, you can select people and objects you want to take out of a picture.

The tool is easy to use and works well for background objects. You are still left with a hole when you cut an object out but it is a very useful tool for creating collages.

At £70, Photoshop Elements 4 is reasonable value for money and there are sufficient improvements in its design and features to keep it well up your shortlist of photo editors.