Now that we aren't burdened by the expense and inconvenience of developing film, we take more photos today than ever before. Individuals with many family photos more than likely use one of two common methodologies for
storing photos:

1. Keeping all photos in one unorganized photo folder.
2. Using the default photo manager that comes with their cameras.

Neither of these two options are perfect. An unorganized file folder makes it extraordinarily
difficult to actually _find_ needed photographs, and the default software that comes with
cameras is often difficult to use. Luckily, there are many different photo editing and
management applications on the market. Consumers can find the photo management application
that fits their preferred ways of working and organizing photos.

Google's photo manager software, Picasa, is an excellent and easy-to-use photo management
application. Picasa has a number of advanced features for users who:

1. Import pictures and organize them into albums by event.
2. Sort albums by who is in which picture.
3. Share photos. With Picasa, users do not need send photos as large attachments. Picasa allows
easy web sharing using Google's tremendous infrastructure.

While Picasa will serve a remarkable number of users' needs very well, there are other similar
services on the market.

Adobe Photoshop Elements

While [Adobe][] is certainly not known for their _cheap_ software, Adobe Photoshop Elements
is one of the best full-featured photo organization tools on the market. Photoshop Elements
is like the full-featured Photoshop program, although it lacks many of the non-photography
features that Photoshop includes. Elements is great for users who will be doing a lot of heavy
photo editing.

[adobe]: http://www.adobe.com

Preclick Gold Photo Organizer

Like Picasa, [Preclick Gold Photo Organizer][preclick] is free. Preclick is ideal for users who
will be doing a lot of heavy printing. Preclick has partnered with Costco, Wal-Mart, and HP to
provide professional-grade prints, so for users who will be printing many photos, Preclick is a
suitable alternative to Picasa.

It is worth keeping in mind that Preclick Photo Organizer does not have as many photo editing
features as Adobe Photoshop Elements or Google Picasa.

[preclick]: http://www.preclick.com

iPhoto

Finally, for Mac users, there's no better photo management application than [iPhoto][]. iPhoto
works seamlessly with any iPhones, iPods (with cameras), or iPads, and allows organization
of photos by event, geographical location, and person. With advanced filtering, users can even
create smart albums, such as "Pictures of Susan in London."

iPhoto also includes a number of advanced photo editing features, such as color leveling or
red eye removal. For simple photo tweaking, the features in iPhoto will more than suffice. If,
however, more advanced features are needed, Photoshop Elements or another more advanced
photo editing application is the better choice.

The choice of a photo management and editing application is not a life-or-death choice, although
the choice of such an application will certainly affect enjoyment of managing photos. For most
users, we recommend Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto. Those two applications are the most well-
rounded applications with the most advanced features, yet both are easy to use.

[iphoto]: http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/