Organization

The last year has been a big one for photo software, with several of the top applications getting significant updates and the introduction of new software alternatives for photographers. The big news most recently is the latest update to Photoshop, but perhaps even more significant is Adobe's introduction of Photoshop Lightroom.

The long-awaited upgrade to Photoshop CS2 is finally on the way, which is especially great news for Mac users, as Photoshop CS3 will run natively on the latest Intel-based Mac systems. For Windows users, it's ready for Vista, too.

Having just used Adobe's new video-editing program to create a soccer video for my daughter, I can tell you that Premiere Elements is designed to make professional-level editing more accessible to everyone. My editing went faster and easier than any video editing I've ever done before.

Every release of Adobe Photoshop Elements raises the bar a bit more and brings the feature set closer to its big brother, Photoshop CS2. Elements 5.0 is no exception, with a number of enhancements that will appeal to both casual and serious photographers, as well as a new group of users who have avoided traditional digital-imaging software in the past. The latest release (currently Windows only) makes organizing and editing images easier and gives you more control over advanced image corrections than in previous versions.