One of the common difficulties people have with digital photography is getting pictures off their cameras and onto their computers. PhotoLightning 2.5 can automatically upload pictures from a camera or memory card and gives you control without fuss. For instance, you can designate where the pictures are saved, how the folder is named, whether uploaded pictures are deleted from the camera or card, and whether previously copied pictures will be prevented from being uploaded again.

If that were all PhotoLightning did, it would be a worthy utility. But it also makes short work of other typical tasks. The main interface displays all your photos—or just those in a specific folder—in chronological order. Click on a thumbnail to display a large preview image, which you can quickly correct for exposure, color, red eye, rotation, and sharpness. These one-click auto-fixes aren't high-level editing, but they work well for what they are.

You can easily prepare and resize selected photos for use in Microsoft Office, in FlipAlbum, on eBay, in print, in an e-mail, or in a slide show. But unfortunately, to do any kind of batch processing, you have to click over to a different area of the program rather than wherever you are making the change, which can be confusing. (The company plans to address this issue.) Currently, upgrades are free for registered owners.

In essence, PhotoLightning lives up to its name. It excels at speedily getting photos onto the computer, organizing them, and using them.