Product Description

PhotoPlus X2 is Serif's outstanding Vista certified digital darkroom dream. With powerful and professional-level editing capabilities, dedicated image-fixing studios for correcting common photo and camera problems, plus support for Photoshop files and plu

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #598 in Software
• Brand: Serif
• Released on: 2008-05-23
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Dimensions: 1.08 pounds

PC Plus
Serif's latest bitmap editor knocks spots off its similarly priced competitors. And it isn't far short of the pro-level either

Manufacturer's Description
The professional digital image editing solution

PhotoPlus X2 Studio Pack brings the power of a professional digital darkroom to your business, organization, school, college, club or home. Organize and open RAW and other popular images including Photoshop files, correct common camera flaws and photo problems, professionally makeover portrait photos, achieve outstanding creative results with powerful artistic effects, print a range of layouts, create web graphics, and share photos digitally.

Perfect results - fast

Professionally organize, fix, enhance and share your photo collection "" fast! PhotoPlus X2 is packed with all the flexible tools you needs for fantastic results.

Airbrush out imperfections

The Makeover Studio gives your portraits the Hollywood treatment "" fix red eye, remove blemishes, smooth skin, brighten teeth and eyes, remove bright hotspots and more. Even let the Makeover Studio carry out editing steps for you.

Fix & adjust your images with ease

The brilliant QuickFix Studio is a one-stop image fixing shop allowing you to easily make several photo adjustments in one hit. Correct camera lens aberration, adjust lighting and color saturation, sharpen and more.

Faultless image resizing

Enlarge images without suffering from jaggies or blocky, pixellated results "" PhotoPlus X2 employs class-leading mathematic algorithms to ensure resizing images (enlarging or downsizing) gives you the best results every time.

Painting effects for your photos

Can't paint, won't paint? PhotoPlus X2 turns you into an Instant Artist! Choose from a range of artistic styles for your photos including Impressionist, Van Gogh, Oil, Pencil, Paint and Ink, and Watercolor.

Extensive file & image format support

Support for RAW digital camera files, scanners, Photoshop files with layers, Photoshop plug-ins, and a powerful image Export Optimizer gives you incredible compatibility with devices and other applications.

Share your creations

Create compelling slideshows from your photo collections, choosing from a range of transitions, your own background music and even movie clips.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

A powerful image editing suite for your digital photos and scanned film - plus it's cheap
Released this year, PhotoPlus X2 is a great alternative to Adobe Elements 7, and although not quite as polished, it's strength is often it's price and it offers a few more features. Serif rarely sell via stores, and rely on word of mouth and cheap upgrade offers to get new users. The fact they have reached version twelve in PhotoPlus shows they must certainly be doing a lot right. I always used Serif software (DrawPlus, PagePlus) at home until I got free licences of Adobe Creative Suite and MS Office Pro from work (which would cost me a few grand to buy myself). Even now, when I've had to pay with my own money for image editing software, I chose PhotoPlus X2 over Elements 7 or Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 [largely because of the low upgrade price]. I'm less fussed about image databases and PhotoPlus does everything essential I need to do at home - I am a professional optical microscopy imaging/analysis specialist by trade and a keen digital/film SLR photographer and slide scanning enthusiast.

PhotoPlus's only real competitor's now are Adobe Elements 7 and Paint Shop Pro X2 [both also superb image editors]. Although PhotoPlus now has improved support for hi-end camera RAW images, Photoplus X2 does lack paint Shop Pro X2's support for HDR [hi dynamic range] photos. Also, although PhotoPlus Studio's AlbumPlus SE Pro does let you create slideshows, burn discs and so on, it lags well behind Elements photo database organiser's abilities. That said I shun such image databases, preferring the simplicity of logical folder names and Nero 8 burning software. Also, whereas PhotoPlus 11 [that's still available] runs on just about anything Pentium PC wise from Windows 98SE/ME to XP/2000 (not Vista), this new X2 version is certified for 2000, XP and Vista only. Like any image editing software, it also needs 2-3 Gb system RAM, a DirectX9 3D graphics card and a modern fast processor to run quickly and smoothly. However X2's minimum spec is any Pentium PC with 500Mb hard drive space and 256Mb RAM [if you are a rather patient sort].

I am very computer and Photoshop CS3 Extended literate, but I think those with more limited PC skills wouldn't find using PhotoPlus X2 a problem though. It has walk though guides like Adobe Elements 7.0, and offers some automation of editing tasks with the `How To' tab, which guides you through common tasks. There are also a few 'Do it for me' links that perform the described action, such as creating a layer or applying an effect. PhotoPlus also has the equivalent of Photoshop's shadow/Highlight (as does Elements 7), an essential tool for those scanning film as it brings out detail in dark shadows. PhotoPlus's use of standard Windows colour scheme is also better for editing than Elements trendy charcoal grey interface, as you can read black text on white easier than white text on grey, and it's actually difficult to tell which image window is active using Elements 7.

PhotoPlus X2's best new feature though is filter layers, which let you apply filters to images non-destructively. Even Photoshop CS3 - at ten times the price - didn't get this feature until 2007, so this alone is a good reason to upgrade from v11. Plus there are a couple of other gallery improvements: There are new `patch and blemish' tools, e.g. to improve image imperfections on skin tones, and there's `makeover studio' to say fix red eye and brighten teeth, an improved `QuickFix studio' that `runs faster', and improved filter effects and B&W conversion. There's also the new `outline' layer tool that draws outlines round objects and text. However PhotoPlus's extract tool isn't as good as Element's version for selection of image features. PhotoPlus also scores heavily with it's powerful batch process, which can say automatically copy, resize and convert a series of TIF images to compressed jpg ones within a folder. This batch processing offers excellent automation of many tasks.

PhotoPlus undercut Photoshop by a significant margin years ago but with the release of Adobe Elements real competition arrived, so PhotoPlus has dropped its price further. Advanced users will still head to Adobe, particularly PhotoShop Extended CS3 (at £500+) or perhaps Photoshop Lightroom 2. PhotoPlus is a decent buy though, with all the required editing tools and scanner twain support, it will even accept Photoshop plug-ins. Check it out at serif.com - there's often on-line offers and Serif's upgrade prices get very cheap as the latest version nears the end of it's life. Once you register PhotoPlus, and you can't actually avoid this or the software won't run, expect a yearly phone-call and emails from Serif (UK) offering the cheap upgrade, and a deal on other Serif Software.

So recommended for those on a very tight budget - once you get past the learning curve the software isn't bad at all, and is a steal when occasionally offered for under £30. Plus Serif will often offer an upgrade to the next version for under £15 after it's been around a while. Adobe want nearer £60 for Element's upgrades - just £10 off the full £70 licence. You can even buy Serif PhotoPlus v10.0 or v11.0 from Amazon resellers [or eBay] if you really need to save the pennies or you still have Windows 98 (and upgrade cheaply later). PhotoPlus X2 offers a good balance of power features for advanced image manipulators coupled with ease of use for home users, although it may lack some tools for serious photographers. But always remember that you can pick up Adobe Photoshop Extended CS3 and the the latest Adobe Elements 7 + Adobe Premiere 7 (video editing) combined package heavily discounted if you qualify for the Adobe educational discount price (non-commercial use and a child in full time education from primary School upwards in the house, or you work in the education sector).

No Photoshop, but no lame duck either
PhotoPlus X2 might not be as fully-featured as Adobe Photoshop CS3/4, or have the industry support or following, but on the other hand it's a tiny fraction of the price of its distant cousin. And it's not short on features - you'll find ample tools here for all the path drawing, masking, compositing and layering work you'd do on a day-to-day basis in Photoshop. For the average, non-pro user, this is more than enough, and as the included examples prove, you can achieve professional-looking results using the features available to you in PhotoPlus X2. In fact, predictably, some of them are easier to use than the equivalents in Photoshop, since Serif has obviously designed the product with ease of use (and lack of learning curve) in mind.

There are tools provided with quick-fixes and fast results in mind - the red eye tool being a prime example (and it works excellently). But most fun are the warp tools that you'll find immediately accessible to you in the main toolbox - use these to squidge, squash and squiggle your photographs until you have the comic effect you desire. The mesh warp tool is very clever - highlight a section of the screen then use the handles that appear to distort that region very precisely. It's all very much like Kai's Power Goo, if anyone remembers that graphics utility from a few years ago! Also useful for creating some interesting 3D effects (it had to have a serious use as well!).

The "Quick Fix" tool is typical of the way Serif want this application to be as instantly useful as possible without spending hours learning how to perform tricks. Tools within this set such as "Blemish Removal" will have thousands of vain photograph subjects clapping with glee! Likewise, "Instant Artist" offers some quick-to-apply filters for turning your photos - very convincingly - into stylised interpretations of sketches and such like.

All in all it's a package full of features, whether you want to improve your photographs, or be creative, whacky and take them to a whole new level!

Really quite tricky but I will perservere
I started using this piece of software as a total novice when it comes to photo manipulation. From the little I do know, I think that there are many similarities between this and Photoshop Elements although this is considerably less expensive.

My first observation was that there seems to be a lot to learn, but there are some very helpful 'show me' features which almost talked me through the process I was trying to complete. However, some of these help pages do expect a small amount of knowledge as I found out, to begin with, that I needed help from my partner to find some of the toolbars I needed to use and was just expected to know where to find.

Having had a good play with some, and by no means all, of the features, I have to admit that I do like this programme and expect that it will get easier to use as I become more familiar with all its features. I have managed to produce somoe simple manipulations already and am keen to learn more about what this program has to offer. I think that once I fully get to grips with it, I believe that this program will offer all the features I need at my level of photography.