Review: Serif Photoplus X2 photo-editing software

Photoplus, while aimed very squarely at home users, nevertheless contains several tools and effects that wouldn't be out of place in a high-end program such as Photoshop.

It may look more old fashioned than the similarly named Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 but some of the editing tools here are very impressive indeed.

One of the biggest changes is the addition of the Makeover Studio, which allows you to touch up family portraits in all kinds of clever ways, as a step-by-step tutorial. If you get bored you can get Photoplus to do it for you in a single click.

The usual effects and filters can be found in the menus, and the program includes quite advanced support for layers, allowing you to build up complex pictures fairly easily. It comes with a decent album management program called Albumplus SE, although this isn't as user-friendly as the one in Photoshop Elements. A very useful printed manual accompanies the CD to create what is a competent and user-friendly picture editor that's capable of advanced tasks.

Vista compatible: Yes