Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 is the latest release from the Adobe Photoshop family. By now most readers are aware of the release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 early in the spring of 2007 (now on version 1.2), and the release of both versions of Adobe Photoshop CS3; Standard and Extended, that happened later in the spring. Well Fall, 2007 brings the release of Elements 6.0.

Just what is Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0? It is the little brother of the industry standard digital imaging software product Adobe Photoshop; in this case CS3. Photoshop is considered by many to be the best digital imaging product on the planet. While Photoshop is great for the professional, it is not always good for casual user, or amateur for a couple of reasons. First, with a high end product, there is usually a high end learning curve that can take months; even years to get good at. Second, with a high end product usually comes a high end price. In the case of Photoshop CS3, new can mean $649.00 USD for Standard, and $999.00 USD for the Extended version. Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 on the other hand is $99.00 USD, or bundled with Adobe Premier Elements 4.0, is $149.00 USD.

What do you need to run Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0. Currently it is only available on Windows, with the Mac release coming early in 2008. So, on Windows you need 1.3GHz, or better machine, with 256 MB (512 recommended) A Mouse. A 16-bit Color display with 1024x768 resolution at 96DPI or less. A CD-Rom, and around 1.5 GB hard disk space available.

So what is new with this version of Adobe Photoshop Elements?

• Get Going Faster – As expected one of the main goals of any software is to try to increase the speed with which you can get things done, and this is no exception. With things better organized, you can move more efficiently.

• Smart Albums – You can now bring together just the photos that you want to see. You can set up to 10 search criteria; things like type of camera, date of shoot, or other info, then click on the Smart Album, and you will see the matching set of photos.

• Enhanced Library Performance – They have sped up your ability to scroll through your photos, apply tags, view, and retrieve your photos.

• Dedicated Project Bin – This allows you to gather the photos you need for a specific project into one place. It provides you with easy access to all of your open photos, photo book pages, and saved albums.

• Enhanced Step-by-step assistance – will walk you through each step needed to edit blemishes, touch up scratches, or other tasks that will improve your photos.

• Enhanced Fine Tune Exposure – gives you more power to adjust color, brightness, and contrast in your photos while preserving much of your original photo data.