Software: Buy Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 Online

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1. Auto Levels -- With one click, colors pop and become more vibrant. Skin tones are optimized. The color cast from indoor or fluorescent lighting is eliminated. To do this manually would be much more time consuming (and definitely hit-or-miss).

2. Auto Contrast -- Also with one click, the light/dark contrast (and tonal range) of a photo is optimized giving the image much more richness.

3. Sharpen -- This takes a few clicks, but this command will make digital photos somewhat sharper. (This also happens automatically when one uses "Auto Contrast.") Sharpening digital photos, especially at longer focal lengths (or when using lower megapixel cameras), is always welcome.

4. Fill Flash -- This command is absolutely amazing. When used, it will brighten all surfaces (in shadow) facings towards the camera (even in the background). If faces are too dark, this will lighten them. If details are lost in the shadows, this will restore them. Brighter areas are unaffected. This command almost eliminates the need for outdoor fill flash or reflectors, and results in much more natural (and more softly lit) portraits. If you take a lot of people pictures, (or if you like to shoot with natural light), this tool is indispensable.

5. Sunset Light -- This digital filter will give a photo taken during bright sunlight the warm glow of an evening image. The sky and all reflected surfaces will look warmer (and more romantic). This is a great way to add drama to scenics (turning cliches into works of art) -- especially if hanging around 'til dusk isn't an option.

6. Perspective Adjustment -- Using a wide angle lens and looking upwards will make buildings appear (on film) as though they are leaning backwards. This tool remedies this. I've found that I won't enlarge photos with leaning buildings -- but I will once they are upright again. Fixing a photo on the computer is also much more convenient than carrying a special shift perspective lens or lugging around a heavy view camera.

7. Color Cast Correction -- This is a really cool tool. For photos where the color is seriously off due to indoor incandescent or fluorescent lighting (beyond what can be remedied by the Auto Levels feature above), this tool fixes it with just one click. Simply put the cursor on an area you know to be black or gray -- and Photoshop Elements will adjust all of the colors (in the entire photo) accordingly. It works fantastically. If you're not satisfied, just keep clicking around other portions of the black or gray area until you get the overall color balance that you're seeking.

For my own use, I've found that I won't print a photo -- until I run it through Photoshop Elements first! I'll usually apply tips #1-3 to every photo. (This takes but mere seconds.) I'll use the Fill Flash feature when faces are too dark (or when the contrast between light and dark is too high.) Lastly, I'll use tools #5-7 only when the situation requires it.

Photoshop Elements also has a convenient "step backwards" function which will delete the effects of the last command (in case you like the previous image better).

(I learned to use most of the above tools, incidentally, by reading Photoshop Elements Solutions by Mikkel Aaland -- which makes the software as easy to use as the folks at Adobe intended. I highly recommend it.)

Other photo editing programs provide a lot of special effects or photo album-type backgrounds. I just want my photos to be better! Adobe Photoshop Elements is perfect for my needs.

The interface and tool bars are also much improved. While I always felt that LE was simple to use for basic editing, many of the more advanced filters and layers could be somewhat difficult for the novice to figure out. Elements 2.0 has made these advanced features much more usable with the excellent tutorial and Recipes feature. With the Recipe feature users are walked through features that would have been daunting even to intermediate users.

Stability and responsiveness has been been very good on my machine. Thus far, Elements 2.0 seems almost as stable as OSX itself (in the year and a half I've been using OSX it (the OS) has NEVER crashed-hard to believe, but true). Elements does take longer to launch then LE, but with all the extra features, that's to be expected. I have been having some problems importing images from my digital camera, but I don't know if that's Adobe's fault, or Olympus', and is the only reason I give it four instead of five stars.

Over all, Photoshop Elements 2.0 is an outstanding product. Not only does it have far more features then Photoshop LE, Adobe almost makes these features more accessible and easier to use. And, last and more importantly, it runs great in OSX.

Elements 2.0 is about as much Photoshop as most people would require. It is now able to create .PDF files for use in the Acrobat Reader, and has many simply executed commands for effects and touch-ups for the newbie. But after a while, the user would want to get into the more sophisticated options available by way of the Enhance tab. The two most useful are to be found at: Enhance > Adjust Brightness/Contrast > Levels - Crtl+L and, Enhance > Adjust Color > Hue & Saturation - Ctrl+U .

They would also want to go: Edit > Preferences > General , and uncheck the Export to Clipboard box. Uncheck the Backwards Compatibility box in the Save As section. And - if they have more than one partition - select one of the others for Scratch Disk use. This will avoid hanging the computer and keep file sizes much tighter.

The Window > Undo History is such a great feature, as it allows the user to step back along a path of work if they have made a number of mistakes, or simply want to compare pre and post results.

Unlike Photoshop LE, Elements is pretty demanding of computer resources, so the user's machine would need to be in good order and have a CPU in excess of 400Mhz to avoid slow launching of the application. Also, the installation might need some consideration via the Custom install if disk space is limited. Still doesn't directly integrate with Acrobat for editing an image by using Ctrl and double clicking with the touch-up object tool. You still need the full Photoshop for that. Not something that many will miss ;-)