Some major and not-so-major changes to Photoshop Elements here in Version 7. Photoshop Elements is the almost-grownup version of Photoshop. For 90-plus percent of users, PSE has all you need to edit photographs, make digital art. Add in Photoshop Premiere Elements and handle videos, too.

There are so many new features in version 7. One that stands out is the new "guided edit." If you are impatient to try out all the ways to modify a photo, you can learn then quickly using a guided edit. The try-it buttons lead you through a sequence of filters and adjustments (not always explaining them in detail, however) and you can get a relatively good result. For tweaking "your way", you'll have to learn the underlying techniques but for an on-the-fly method, this is a handy tool and a great way to dip into the huge array of tools. But some of the new guided edits won't help you learn how to do it on your own as they are script-based and some of these newfangled tricks only show up in guided edit, nowhere else.

For those that use the selection brushes (a magic tool that selects similar color areas to allow you to recolor, delete or otherwise modify sections of pictures) there is now the ability to modify the selection with a plus-minus feature that is included in the brush control, not as a separate brush as in previous versions. I use the selection brush a lot to modify photos for visualizing paintings, and this is a nice improvement.

The help has been greatly expanded; not only is the Adobe reader-based help available, but there is a new beta community-based (wiki-style) help as well.

The photographic editing has been greatly enhanced for ease of use. For example, there are quick fixes, remove elements (dust, red glowing zombie eyes, poles sticking up in back of heads) and other desirable cures for photo problems. There are project guides for making artwork with an eye to the scrapbooking hobbyist. There is an improved photomerge feature for group shots (that's handy.)

I was certainly happy with the new text search box, which lets you search your for pictures by keywords, time, data, camera, and caption. If you've lost a picture and it's somewhere buried in your folders, you know how useful this can be.

You can now back up your photos online, join a Photoshop community and download more easily to cell phones. Photoshop.com membership offers a lot of ways to share photos, including one I found intriguing; if you keep your photos on your desktop and travel with a laptop, you can access the server at Photoshop.com and have access to photos you don't have with you. (Conversely, I can think of a case when I was traveling in a remote place and was downloading photos to the laptop. I would have appreciated an easy way to upload them all somewhere else for safekeeping.) There are also album templates for online sharing, similar to Flickr and Photobucket. The online part of PSE is really the biggest addition to the new version. While I did find a lot of the editing slicker in the revamped organizer, the basic program is very much the same.

Why should you bother with Photoshop.com if you use other online photo management systems? Existing users and new ones get free, basic membership plans with 2GB of storage. The 'Plus' plan is sold on its own for $50 per year or bundled with the desktop software for $140 and has 20GB of space and you can also store videos. The online membership allows you to sync with some applications in PSE7 and to do phone picture management. Right now, the phone feature is uploading and sharing, but in future, there may be a mobile version for more photo manipulation. (I use my cell phone just for calls and the occasional peep at the news; apparently phones are becoming pretty advanced--when they have one that dispenses a decent espresso, I'll think about it.)

In summary: if you are a new user to Photoshop Elements, there are many enhancements for communication and sharing as well as better help. If you are a current user, you might want to think if you need the latest bells and whistles. If you are a home-based PSE user, there might not be enough to tempt you. But if you share a lot of pictures and want a faster way to do some of the photo manipulation, PSE7 could be great for you. Remember, if you want macros (scripts of frequently-used sequence of keystrokes) and if you need to access information on PANTONE, CMYK and other printer's color functions, Photoshop Creative Suite --the original full program, is what you need to use.