|
 Ulead PhotoImpact 10 ($89.99 direct; www.ulead.com) is a comprehensive collection of photo-editing tools geared towards both beginners and professionals. If you're looking for an advanced, comprehensive assortment of software for a reasonable price, try Ulead's $89.99 PhotoImpact 10. Although its Standard Mode interface is a bit cluttered, this package gives you plenty for your money for slightly less than the price of Adobe Photoshop Elements.
In addition to the PhotoImpact image-editing app, you get the fun Ulead Cool 360 software to stitch your photos and make panoramas. You manage your photos using the included Photo Explorer 8.5 and PhotoImpact Album 10. A Switch button allows you to switch among the programs in the suite.
The program is pretty easy to use in Basic Mode, a streamlined interface with larger icons, but there's a steep learning curve for many features in Standard Mode. (Use the Workspace drop-down menu to switch between these two modes.)
Although learning these features requires patience, Ulead provides a thorough manual and excellent help videos, as well as online and CD tutorials to get you going.
A key, intuitive feature is the ExpressFix tool, which lets you adjust the skin tone, color quality, and exposure settings. In this dialog box, and with other features, variation sliders allow for a great degree of precision when applying a setting. A side-by-side display lets you compare the images before and after each feature has been implemented.
|
