by , 8:40 AM EDT, June 9th, 2005

Eastman Kodak Company announced Thursday Kodak Easyshare 5.0, a free utility that helps users organize, edit, share and print digital pictures. The company said the new utility will be available for Mac OS X Tiger later this summer.

Version 5.0 features the ability to trim, splice, rotate and add music to digital videos. Improved picture editing options also make it easy to automatically reduce red eye and enhance images at the touch of a button. A new 'Scene Effects' tool can even change the mood of pictures, providing greater control over each image's appearance.

The 'Express Upload' feature allows users to send an album to the KODAK EASYSHARE Gallery (formerly Ofoto) for designing photo books, custom prints, calendars, greeting cards and more. A new slider control saves time by allowing people to dynamically scale thumbnails and digital albums so that more pictures can be viewed at once. The 'Smart Transfer' feature with duplicate picture detection prevents inadvertently storing multiple copies of the same image, saving hard drive space and eliminating confusion.

Sharing options have also been increased in version 5.0. Owners of recent KODAK EASYSHARE digital cameras can synchronize their favorite pictures between the camera's memory and EASYSHARE Software, turning cameras into portable picture galleries for on-the-go sharing.