Labs

We were impressed that PhotoPlus X2 came with a 180-page User Guide and 344-page Resource Guide, all in English. Unfortunately, these cost an extra £10 and £20 respectively.

Still, you shouldn't need much help getting to grips with the program. On running it and opting to create a new document, you get a large selection of preset formats from which to choose. This is useful, although new users may be tempted to accept the unlikely default choices. The main screen feels reassuringly familiar, with tools down the left side, palettes at the right and a photo bin at the bottom. A How To pane guides you through various tasks, but reduces the already cramped space left for your picture. We were disappointed to find that the new Makeover Studio feature is just a list of How To entries.

Many of PhotoPlus's tools are reminiscent of Photoshop Elements, but you also get features that Elements lacks, including layer masks. There's a good range of Adobe-like layer effects, putting PhotoPlus ahead of Paint Shop Pro in this respect, although the range

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of ready-made Instant Effects isn't as attractive as Adobe's or as extensive as Ulead's. Unlike the other programs, PhotoPlus can also prepare image maps for websites.

PhotoPlus has sophisticated warping tools and can edit the red, green and blue (RGB) channels in an image, which is more than any other program except the GIMP can manage. The Instant Artist feature makes it easy to apply any of a dozen very effective and highly controllable painted effects to a photo. As well as a direct equivalent of Photoshop Elements' Adjustment Layers, there are Filter Layers to apply a wider range of effects non-destructively.

The bundled photo organiser, AlbumPlus SE PRO, now adds a small range of project wizards for things such as calendars, albums and greetings cards, as well as basic slideshows that can be saved as movies. However, the options are limited and they are not very customisable.

Small things let PhotoPlus down. There's a Curves dialog box, but it doesn't show a histogram or let you set the grey point, as Paint Shop Pro does. To save an image in anything except PhotoPlus's native format, you have to use Export rather than Save As. As we mentioned in our initial review (Shopper 241), operations such as applying effects can take longer than with the Adobe or Corel products - although Paint Shop Pro X2 was also sluggish in some operations.

PhotoPlus is tantalisingly close to being a serious rival to Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro, but neither this nor the previous upgrade added much of note, and it's a little more expensive than it should be. Even so, its range of features makes it a good choice.