Although it started as a cut-down version of professional image editor Photoshop, Elements continues to grow further away from the original.

Version 6 comes in the slate grey colours that all the firm's products now use, broken up by colourful icons and the main mode tabs that control the main functions.

Photoshop Elements 6 is divided into sections called Organise, Fix, Edit, Create and Share. The organiser, similar to that in Premiere Elements 4, makes it easy to create albums of photos and tag individual shots by categories such as people, places or events.

There's none of the date-based automatic tagging of Apple’s iPhoto, but once you put in the work to tag a collection of images, pulling them out and organising them becomes simple.

For automated adjustments to a photograph, it's not necessary to leave the Organiser because it can apply corrections to colour, brightness and contrast directly. You can even go into more detail and change things using manual sliders.

The Organiser is useful on its own, but clicking on Create or Edit opens the main Photoshop Editor, with a far more extensive range of tools, many of which are found in the full Photoshop. New to version 6 of Elements is the Quick Selection tool, which enables users to nudge the outline of a selection in and out until it covers just the area required. It's quite a bit quicker than trying to draw freehand around an element.

The Healing and Spot Healing brushes make it very easy to remove blemishes from skin or rips from old prints, and the Orwellian Photomerge tool enables you to change the face of a portrait. This is ideal if, for instance, you have a family photograph in which only one person is blinking: just merge in the same person's face from another photo, although it's best to pick a similar pose. The Guided Editing mode leads users step-by-step through basic procedures such as cropping, contrast and brightness adjustment.

The good range of collage templates for printed and online albums is an example of the improved support for those who want to share their photos, and the program makes it straightforward to send photos over email.

Vista compatible: Yes