PhotoPlus has been creeping up on its betterknown rivals in the photo-editing arena for a while now and with version 10, Serif has got even closer.

It can handle all the obvious things, like touching up photos by altering exposure, colour levels and removing red-eye, as well as more cosmetic tasks – like adding frames and using a wide range of filters to produce pseudo-artistic effects.

There are well-developed painting tools, plus handy features such as a magnetic selection tool.

Much has been done to improve automation within the program. You can now run batch operations – such as loading images in one file format and saving them in another – automatically.

There are also 200 pre-defined macros for doing things like tinting photos in a range of colours and applying filters, and you can also create your own.

Other improvements include individual editing of red, green and blue colour channels, a new filter gallery and layer management.

Included in the package is AlbumPlus 4, a well-designed photo management
application that integrates well with PhotoPlus 10. Overall, the two together
make for an impressive photo suite.