Choosing a Photo Editing Program

When it comes time to touch up your digital photos, you need a photo-editing program. You can choose a low-priced, consumer-oriented program or a high-priced program targeted at professional photographers. For most of us, the consumer-oriented programs are more than adequateand, in fact, you might have received one bundled with your new PC or digital camera.

If you're in the market for a low-priced photo-editing program, here are the most popular programs in use today:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements (www.adobe.com)

• IrfanView (www.irfanview.com)

• Microsoft Picture It! Photo (www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/)

• Paint Shop Pro (www.corel.com)

• Picasa (www.picasa.com)

• Roxio PhotoSuite (www.roxio.com)

My favorite of these programs is Adobe Photoshop Elementsnot to be confused with the much more expensive (and harder to use) Adobe Photoshop. The Elements program is extremely easy to use, with one-button operation for most common photo editing tasksas you'll see next.