Even the keenest home video enthusiast is unlikely to pull £500 from a pocket for a copy of Adobe's premium video editor, Premiere Pro CS3, so it was a good idea for the company to introduce the cut-down Premiere Elements, back in 2004. With a new version every year since then, Premiere Elements 4 continues to offer most of the core editing features of its professional stablemate.

The first thing to notice on starting up Premiere Elements 4 is a revamp of the interface. In toning shades of dark grey - you can get a good feel of this if you already run Adobe Reader 8 - the main screen is pleasantly uncluttered. The preview pane has been enlarged and moved to the left, with a selector panel for clips, effects, titles, transitions and the like to its right and with a timeline or ‘Sceneline' (storyboard) underneath.

There's also a file organiser, which Premiere shares with Photoshop Elements 6, where you can sort and rate different video clips and stills. They can be tagged under headings of people, places and events, for easier housekeeping.

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The new package is evolutionary, with improvements to existing features more prevalent than brand new ones. There are now Movie Themes, where you can add your own content to pre-designed templates with their own menu and title screens and co-ordinating effects. They vary quite a bit in design and some are rather cheesily American, but they can speed the creation of a smooth-running video, if you're pushed for time.

If you're making the move to HD video, Premiere Elements 4.0 goes part of the way to help. It can import HD video, though not from the latest AVCHD camcorders, edit it and prepare it for burning. It can then burn to Blu-ray discs, but not to HD-DVD. There are other destinations for video, of course and, along with all leading home video editors, Premiere can now upload directly to YouTube.

The audio mixer has also been improved, enabling easy adjustment of narrative, soundtrack and background music. It looks and works pretty much like a small studio mixer and you can pan each sound channel left and right within the sound stage.

Although soundtrack control is enhanced, there are still audio shortcomings in comparison with Ulead VideoStudio or Pinnacle Studio. For example, 2.1 stereo is the best you can achieve, while Adobe's main rivals have been able to handle 5.1 multi-channel sound for at least a couple of releases.

The improvements in Premiere Elements 4 are all useful, though none is earth-shattering. It's a neater, tighter video editor and very good value for its asking price. For those whose interests cover still photography as well as video, the bundle with Photoshop Elements 6 is even better value, at around £100.