Ulead PhotoImpact 10

At first glance, Ulead PhotoImpact 10 presents much the same face as other photo editors, such as Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro. There are toolbar buttons along the top and side and a main window for working with your image.

It is similar enough, in fact, to make the transfer easy if you're used to working with one of those other pieces of software. Under the skin, however, PhotoImpact does things slightly differently.

For instance, in addition to the array of effects available from the Effect menu, there is also the EasyPalette, a pane down the right-hand side of the screen containing various effects that you can drag-and-drop on to the image, or select to use with a brush. The EasyPalette has been reorganised and updated since the previous version.

That said, if the sight of all those tools proves a little overbearing, you can always switch over to the new Basic Mode. This hides most of the complex stuff, allowing beginners to get on with simple tasks straight away. In practice, this doesn't do much other than make the icons a bit bigger and hide the complicated tools, but it does make the whole thing easier to use.

There's a wizard to import images from a digital camera, although this is now quite easy to do in Windows, so it's not the most useful of additions. The other enhancements are mainly cosmetic, such as tidying up the main screen and allowing you to dock the toolbars to the side of the window so they become panes. There are a few new effects, such as 'Pen and Ink' and 'Stippling', which can produce some interesting results.

All in all, PhotoImpact 10 is a competent and comprehensive piece of image-editing software and, although it's more expensive than some of its competitors, it does make it easier to get what you want from your pictures.

Contact: Ulead
www.ulead.co.uk

Also consider: Roxio PhotoSuite 7 Platinum