The first thing you'll notice on installing Photobie is the dated interface. Get past this, however, and you'll find a feature-packed program.

Photobie offers support for the most popular image formats (BMP, JPG, GIF, TIFF and PNG), along with ICO files. GIF support includes the full transparency mode.

A useful feature is Photo Frame, which lets you quickly add a frame to an image. It comes with an image browser that allows you to preview the contents of a directory in thumbnail format.

Layers are supported, enabling you to create fairly advanced images. These images will need to be saved in the proprietary Photobie format (.pob) though.

All the expected functions are available, including resizing, rotating, adjusting gamma and brightness. It doesn't include any filters or effects, however, so advanced manipulation of an image will be difficult. Also included is a screen capture program for capturing all or part of a screen.

Just be prepared to spend some time getting accustomed to the interface.