Do you want to do more with your photos than iPhoto can do?  Perhaps make some edits to the photo itself or a portion of the photo?  I previously wrote how Lightroom from Adobe might be an answer for your photo needs.  I believe for many people looking to move forward from iPhoto, it is.  But some users have a need to be able to edit a portion of a photo.  In that case, Photoshop Elements may be the right tool to use for this need.

iPhoto gives you the ability to make some terrific modifications to your photos.  If you need to adjust the color or saturation of a photo, it gives you great tools to be able to deal with these kinds of corrections.  But what if you need to make a change to the image itself?  Perhaps you need to fix the color of only a portion of the image.  To do this you need additional tools.

The industry standard for such work is Photoshop.  Photoshop gives a professional photographer the ability make nearly any change to an image that could be dreamed of.  But Adobe Photoshop is an expensive program that can only be obtained on an ongoing subscription basis at $29/month and it has a steep learning curve.

Fortunately, Adobe recognizes that the photo enthusiast cannot spend this much money to do minor edits to their photos.  Adobe also sells a product called Photoshop Elements.  Elements provide much of the ability to make modifications to photos that an amateur photographer might need.  In addition, they also provide additional tools that make typical modifications you might want to make even easier.  As good as iPhoto is, there are times it is just not quite enough and elements gives you those extra tools you need to save that all important shot.

Some of the great features in Elements include:

• Cookie cutter tool
• Smart brush tool
• Photomerge modes, like Group Shot, Scene Cleaner, Faces, and Style Match
• Guided Edits and Quick Fix mode
• Automatically divide scanned photos when using a scanner
• Photo creation templates for photo books, greeting cards, calendars, and more.
• Easy online sharing options for Facebook, Flickr, etc.

Adobe sells Photoshop Elements for $99 in a box but you can often find it for as low as $69 from the at Amazon.  Elements is cross platform with the same license so it will run on Windows or Mac with no problem.

If you are looking for the next tool to put into your photo fixing bag of tricks, elements might just be the one for you.  At the lower cost, it is a great way to begin looking at serious photo editing and provides the easy to use tools to get those fixes right the first time.

To find out more about Photoshop Elements 11, check out the features from Adobe’s web site at the link provided.