Stories by: Grace Aquino

Updated photo management app offers more organising features and added flexibility with RAW files, but you'll need a powerful PC.

Make the most of your cell phone with these tweaks.

Though I appreciate the level of control that photo editing programs like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro offer, they can be too involved for my needs. When I require a few quick-and-dirty photo fixes or the ability to share my snapshots instantly, I want an app like Corel's US$40 Snapfire Plus, whose straightforward organization and editing tools will please most casual photographers. I do wish, however, that it had a little more flexibility in some of its editing functions.

With a long-range 10x optical zoom, Kodak's EasyShare V610 can bring the farthest subjects into full, detailed view. Unfortunately, this dual-lens camera also has a propensity for blurred photos at its highest zoom levels, plus disappointingly short battery life.

Epson announced two digital cameras and a photo viewer at last week's PhotoPlus Expo. The company expands its camera family with the US$399 L-500V point-and-shoot and the US$2999 (price excludes lens) R-D1 digital rangefinder camera. Epson also unleashed an upgrade to its photo viewer, the US$499 P-2000. The three devices will be available in November.

Shutterbugs have plenty of new options when it comes to selecting a digital camera. Nikon, Eastman Kodak, and Casio all are adding models to their existing lineups, while Aiwa Business Center enters the fray with the release of its first digital camera.

Kodak and Kyocera are both taking a new approach to digital cameras, introducing new models with unusually large displays, measuring more than 2 inches. Kodak also went one step further, developing the first camera with an organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, display.

Into the ever-shrinking world of digital cameras comes a new breed of slim and practical supermodels from Casio. The $699 Exilim EX-M1 weighs 125 grams; it measures about 6cm high by 9cm wide by 1.3cm thick. The EX-M1's 1.2-megapixel image resolution, low by today's exacting standards, is good enough to handle Internet-bound photos or 3x5-inch prints.

A pair of Casio Computer Co. Ltd. cameras have joined the ever-growing selection of ever-shrinking digicams, making their debut at PC Expo/TechXNY here this week.

Both of these 3-megapixel shipping models slip easily into a shirt pocket and will please both the casual shutterbug and the more advanced photographer.

The Canon PowerShot Digital Ixus 300 and Nikon Coolpix 995 are two powerful digital cameras to hit the market.