It would be nice to see this feature in other editing programs as well.įor those just starting out, or for someone moving up to a more full featured program like PhotoPlus X2, the How To panel (Figure 5) is a welcome resource. I was pleasantly surprised by how many tutorials there were, and the fact that they are done in PDF format makes it easy to print them for future reference. Under the View section, you'll find a link for a number of very well done tutorials (Figure 4). If you shoot RAW, you'll want to either use your camera's conversion software prior to opening in PhotoPlus X2, or consider another program like Elements with a full featured RAW converter. The file is converted with the setting used at capture time, making this less useful. Similar to Adobe Organizer, you can sort, rate, tag, and browse files that can then be edited in PhotoPlus X2.Īlthough the program will open RAW files from some cameras, editing RAW data prior to conversion is not supported. Included with PhotoPlus X2, although not reviewed here is Albums Plus, a program that organizes all your media files, including images, video, and sound. Clicking Browse opens a fairly standard File Open dialog that has been optimized for graphics with Name, Date, Tags, Size, and Ratings sort options (Figure 3). Choosing the Open Saved Work option gives you a list of recent images along with a thumbnail view of the selected file (Figure 2). While the presets are nice, you will usually begin by selecting an existing image. The different Categories available offer presets that are appropriate for that type of image – for example, selecting Web gives you a number of standard screen sizes and sets the resolution to 96 ppi, while selecting Photo defaults to 10x8 at 300 ppi. Selecting either of the Create options opens a dialog box to set the image size and type. You're asked which of several common tasks you'd like to perform.

Ease of UseĪs you can see in Figure 1, PhotoPlus X2 looks similar to Photoshop Elements when you first launch.

Once you start to delve into the program though, the advanced features available in PhotoPlus X2 are a pleasant surprise. At first glance, the £59.99 / $79.99 price tag would place it in the entry level group, and some of the guided How To features would lead one to think this is just a basic offering. Serif PhotoPlus X2 is just such an application. Some make it easy to classify – Adobe Photoshop Elements is obviously the lightweight cousin of Photoshop CS, but others are more difficult to classify. With the features that are becoming common in many of these applications, I define entry level more by price and ease of use than by feature set. There is no shortage of entry-level image editing programs available, especially on the Windows platform.

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