You’ve taken masses of photos with your digital camera and they are stashed away on your hard drive of your Mac where nobody can see them. Does this sound familiar? Do your photos need organising and editing but you don’t know where to begin? This article aims to provide some recommendations to help you get started in digital photo editing with Adobe Photoshop Elements Mac Version 4.0.

To start with you will need a digital photo editing program. I personally recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements Mac Version 4.0. This version is compatible with all G-series as well as the new Intel Macs. Photoshop Elements is an easier to use version of the professional Adobe Photoshop software. Since it is aimed at the home digital photo enthusiast, Elements carries out basic photo editing tasks promptly and effortlessly and includes many sophisticated Photoshop features which are available to you at the click of a mouse.

The interface is clear and well laid out, a great feature for the digital photo editing beginner is the use of descriptive icons, where you hang your mouse over an icon and it shows a description of its function. Organising your photos is a snap, Elements allows you to manage, sort, delete and view your picture collection in many different ways including face tagging and keyword tagging. It also displays an exhaustive list of file properties for each of your images so you’ll never misplace a photo on your hard drive again. Also, a partnership between Adobe and Kodak gives you the opportunity to share photos online, print greetings cards, custom calendars or photo books. Before you eject the install cd, make sure you copy the Goodies folder to your hard drive - it contains loads of frames, backgrounds and extras to play around with.

Quick Fix allows you to execute basic editing functions which can correct the most common digital photo flaws. With a few clicks of the mouse smart fix and auto red-eye removal easily gives you a photo that is ready to print. Some more handy functions include the skin tone adjustment tool, which makes skin tones appear more natural and the straighten tool which allows you to straighten and crop crooked photos. A couple of the more advanced features include the magic selection brush and magic extractor tool. Using the magic selection brush you can scribble on an object and, providing there is enough contrast between it and the background, Elements will select it for you. The magic extractor is an even better tool; it is easy to use and allows you to separate objects from the background of an image in seconds with great accurately.

So, for the beginner or even the more advanced user, if you want to edit your photos quickly and easily with very little work, and finally remove them from your hard drive, Adobe Photoshop Elements Mac Version 4.0 offers all the functionality you’ll ever need and is excellent value for money.