Photoshop is the best known photo editing application in the world and it was a bit of inspired thinking by Adobe to introduce a cut-down version of the software at something like a tenth of Photoshop's price. Now in version 4, Photoshop Elements introduces some useful extras into what is already a strong mix of photo editing goodies.

Before you start work with your photos, you'll need to download and organise them on your PC. The Photo Downloader is an album tool, which enables you to organise your photos by date, type or other metadata. If you have a series of similar photos of a subject, you can 'stack' them on the screen, so you can get more, different shots displayed at once. You can compare shots side by side quickly and easily, too, to decide which is the best in a sequence.

Simple fixes like zapping red-eye are now quicker, as you don't have to target the eyes in question. The red-eye tool can find eyes for itself and is pretty accurate. It's not even easily fooled by a red polka-dot dress.

Selecting parts of an image is much easier, with the magic brush tool. Run this through the areas you're after and Elements uses built-in intelligence to work out where the limits of that object lie. Although it occasionally gets confused, you can modify the marquee created to zone in on the exact part you're after. The magic extractor tool makes it easier to pull objects out of their backgrounds, too.

Other useful tools include skin tone adjustment and the ability to straighten a photo by drawing a straight line though it where you want the horizontal. Two healing brushes make it very easy to remove spots from faces and objects from photos, replacing them with material derived from the background. They're like supercharged clone tools.

Finally, if you have a camera which can take photos in RAW mode, chances are you can edit them directly in Photoshop Elements 4, giving you more scope to adjust exposures and colours than with JPEG.