Microsoft's Picture It program has been floating around for a few years now but it's never made much of an impact on the big-selling heavyweights such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, Ulead PhotoImpact or Jasc Paint Shop Pro.

With this latest upgrade, Microsoft has decided to really go head-to-head with the big names. The program's full title is Picture It Digital Image Pro 7 and the 'Pro' bit suggests that the company wants its products to be taken more seriously.

It's done a pretty good job too. There's a wide range of powerful editing tools: dozens of artistic effects, special effects filters and distortion tools, along with more mundane options such as brightness, contrast and colour controls.

There are also some nice features that outdo anything in Photoshop Elements, one of our favourite programs.

The Crop tool allows photos to be trimmed into irregular shapes and there's a nice, easy option for creating animated graphics for web pages. We also liked the Mini-Labs window in which you can open and work with multiple images simultaneously.

Where Image Pro really scores is in its impressive ease of use. The program's interface has been streamlined to provide quick access to all its main tools, yet still manages to keep things really simple for less experienced users.

The program's introductory screen allows you to start work straightaway or to take a look at a brief but nicely animated overview of its main tools. There are also more detailed tutorial files available here if you want them.

When you are ready to work on your photos, you enter the main workspace which displays your photos on-screen with the main toolbar running down the left-hand edge.

The toolbar works in two modes, allowing you to switch between modes simply by pressing a button. If you are new to photo editing, you can choose the Common Tasks mode, which lists a series of common photo-editing tasks such as trimming an image or removing blemishes.

When you select a task, the toolbar displays a submenu containing all the relevant tools so you don't have to go looking for them in other menus or dialogue boxes. This menu also includes additional help files just in case you're not sure what to do next.

As you become more confident, you can work with the toolbar in its Standard mode, which simply arranges tools in related groups such as retouching, special effects and text tools.

There's also a Projects option here, which lets you use the many templates provided with the program to create documents including calendars, cards and invitations.

The way these tools are organised means you won't have to waste time looking for anything or trying to figure out how to complete a task.

We even liked the manual. A lot of low-cost software doesn't include a proper printed manual at all, but Microsoft has included an extensive one that explains how to use the program and provides information about digital photography and how to get the best out of a camera or scanner.

Digital Image Pro isn't the cheapest photo editor available - the Standard version of Picture It is still available for half the price - but its improved ease of use makes this an impressive upgrade and should act as competition to the market favourites.

Price: £60
Contact: Microsoft 0870 601 0100
www.microsoft.com/uk/homepc/pictureit

Also consider: Ulead PhotoImpact 7
Easy to use and well priced. £50 *****.