On Thursday, graphics giant Adobe announced the most recent version of its consumer-focused editing product, Photoshop Elements 6. According to Macworld, the new version, which will be released in the second quarter of 2008, sports new features such as a new Photomerge, which can combine facial expressions and body language from up to 10 photos. This can help users create a photo of a group of people that may keep moving about between shots or might not be looking in the right direction at a given point in time.

Other bells and whistles, including a Guided Edit mode, help provide the user with an explanation as to which problem they're about to fix and walk the user through each step of the process.

Photoshop Elements 6 will also ship with customizable layouts that let users create scrapbook pages, photo books, greeting cards and burn to CD and DVD formats. Additional sharing options include ordering prints, creating personal online albums printing photos into real U.S. postage stamps and showcasing creations on a CEIVA Digital Photo Frame.

The program requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later to run and the full version will retail for US$89 while upgrade versions will be available for US$69.

Adobe will be demonstrating the new version at Macworld Expo in San Francisco next week and is taking pre-orders starting today.