• PhotoPlus X2 is Serif's outstanding Vista certified digital darkroom dream.
• It offers an unrivalled combination of professional power and usability features, representing a complete digital image editing powerhouse.
• Business users and enthusiasts alike have total power to professionally fix, edit, enhance, and share digital images.
• With powerful and professional-level editing, dedicated image-fixing studios for correcting common problems, plus support for Photoshop files and plug-ins, PhotoPlus X2 is ideal for anyone looking to fix, enhance, organize, and share digital images.
• 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.

PhotoPlus X2 offers everything you need to get the very best from your digital photos!

PhotoPlus X2 Studio Pack is Serif's powerful Windows Vista certified photo editor, fixing, organising and sharing powerhouse which, offers all you need to get the very best from your digital pictures.

If you're new to PhotoPlus, then don't worry! With PhotoPlus X2 anyone can fix common photo problems such as red-eye and colour balance, whilst also giving you all the tools you need to perform more complex tasks all in a stylish, flexible interface.

This powerful new version of PhotoPlus is now both more flexible and easier to use than ever, and is even amongst the first non-Microsoft graphics applications to be awarded the full Certified for Windows Vista? Logo! Whether you've already upgraded to Vista, are planning to in the near future, or you're happy sticking with Windows XP or 2000, you'll find PhotoPlus X2 looks and works great with your version of Windows!

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.

The professional digital image editing solution. Click to enlarge.

Give your images a Hollywood makeover with PhotoPlus's dedicated Studio. Click to enlarge.

Resize complicated images with perfect results every time. Click to enlarge.

Add instant effects to make your photo a work of art. Click to enlarge.

The Professional Digital Image Editing Solution

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.

This photo editing software is very easy to start up and pretty user friendly! I have enjoyed using lots of the neat effects that come with it.

PhotoPlus X2 is a very good photo editor. It is operates in a similar manner to Photoshop in many aspects though it is not as powerful as CS3 or CS4.

PhotoPlus X2 is similar in features and power to Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate. Both programs are more powerful than Photoshop Elements versions 6 or 7. An additional bonus of PhotoPlus X2 not offered with Paint Shop Pro is compatibility with 3rd party Photoshop plugins.

Pros:

Basic editing such as color adjustment, sharpening, lens filters, cloning etc are easy to find and use.

Photo resizing is excellent - the best that I have seen! (I am referring to taking a small photo and doubling it in size. Most programs leave the photo in a fuzzy condition. PhotoPlus X2 somehow doubles the photos with less fuzziness.)

The lens vignette function is really a nice feature to have. If you use a polarized filter, often times the sky on one side of the photo will be much darker than the other side. The lens vignette function largely eliminates this problem.

Cons:

The sharpen slider in the Quickfix studio works in chunks rather than in a linear fashion - 0,50 etc. You must type in a sharpen amount in the box next to the slider and then sharpen in a linear fashion - 28,29,30,31 etc. Serif verified this bug in Sept 08.

The makeover studio requires several steps similar to Adobe Photoshop - creation of editing masks. Paintshop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate thankfully does not require the creation of masks to do makeover tasks.

All in all an excellent photo editor that will generally run quite nicely on older hardware - Pentium 4, 3ghz with 3mb of ram.

As a frequent digital photographer, I'm always on the lookout for new products that can save me time when editing my snaps. I use Photoshop CS2 for my business, but can't justify the expense at home, so I've tried various alternatives over the past couple of years. Of all the different options out there - Photoshop Elements, Paintshop Pro and the like, Serif's PhotoPlus X2 comes closest to replicating both the look and the power of CS2, but at a far more affordable price. I've been using it for several months now, and find many of its features indispensible - I rely on the batch processing feature regularly to resize my images, and the Instant Artist window is capable of some great results, although it does take some practice and can be slow at times.

PhotoPlus isn't the easiest editor out there, but it does have a 'How To' window which can help with more complex tasks. I'd definitely recommend it to most digital camera users, as it will allow them to do just about anything they need to, without costing more than their camera...

Overall I'd rate PhotoPlus X2 like this:

Features: 9/10
Help/Tutorials: 9/10
Speed: 8/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 9/10