The big daddy video editing package in the Adobe range, Premiere Pro, is a costly beast, with the latest version bestowed with a price tag in excess of £1,000. But just as it does with its also-hardly-cheap Photoshop package, Adobe has tailored a version of Premiere for those of us on more modest budgets.

And once more, it's a solid compromise between features and price, with Premiere Elements 7 (don't worry if you're a long time user; they did skip a few numbers) actively discounted by many to fall around the £55 mark.

For that money you're getting one of the friendliest and most powerful home video editing applications on the market. It wasn't always so, with earlier versions of the package being criticised for their lack of warmth towards novice users, but that's been addressed here, with a clear and easy-to-follow user interface being backed by some intelligent features.

For instance, you can tag your video clips and the software will sort through them and look for any problems. It's also taken a leaf out of its rivals' books by implementing a new feature to automatically cobble together an edit for you from your footage.

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We've always felt that this is a step too far - after all, part of the fun of editing is having control over what makes the final cut - but it does a passable enough job of knocking something together if you don't want to get your hands dirty. It's easily accessible too from the posh opening screen, which manages to insist you open a project to do anything, but other than that keeps up the friendly sheen.

The software's good at taking you through the necessary process (right from selecting between PAL and NTSC output as part of the installation routine), from the importing of your material, through the familiar timeline-editing functions, right through to output.

High definition formats are supported this time, too, starting with the ability to import AVCHD material and going through to being able to output onto Blu-ray. The software will also spit out your production in an assortment of file formats and can deliver your content to YouTube or a website if you want it to.

The big downer, though, is that Premiere Elements is a bit of a resource hog, and if you want to work fluidly with it - particularly when dealing with high definition material - you'll want to make sure that your machine is armed with enough memory for the job.

Stability is also a problem. We're not talking about the old days of Pinnacle Studio here, but Premiere Elements 7 did topple over once or twice through the duration of the test, particularly when handling intensive work. It's also not quite up to the very high standards set by Sony's Vegas Movie Studio, although that package may be a little more daunting to novices.

But Premiere Elements 7 is still one of the best applications of its type and has improved notably since we saw it last. With templates and material in place for you to get started with quickly, it's enjoyed a fresh sprinkling of user-friendliness but doesn't really compromise on the power under the bonnet.

A few stability issues aside, this is a good, solid improvement on previous versions and a strong home video editing application.