While the grinning male model on the box is clearly designed to attract the novice, Ulead's Photo Impact is actually a professional-quality image editor. This latest version, Photo Impact XL, adds even more features as it goes up against stiff competition from Paint Shop Pro 8 and Adobe Photoshop Elements.

In line with the current boom in digital camera sales, Photo Impact XL houses a number of tools aimed squarely at photographers who want to improve their snaps. The Expressfix Digital Photo Adjustment wizard endeavours to perk up any digital photo by taking you through its six-step enhancement process. Covering common problem areas such as exposure levels, colour correction and focusing issues, Expressfix is a useful instrument for those who don't fancy fumbling around the various options in the Effects menu. What's more, if you feel the camera has been a little harsh in portrait photos, the tactfully named Beautify Skin tool will do its best to touch up your subject by eliminating unsightly blemishes.

Getting the correct exposure when snapping away is always a tricky task; this is especially the case if your shot comprises a mixture of bright sunlight and heavily shaded areas. If you've taken a series of photos at various exposure levels, and none of them strike quite the right balance, the High Dynamic Range feature is on hand to examine every individual image and come up with a single version combining the best of each photo. What's more, you don't have to supply it with images taken at exactly the same angle since it's able to map the locations of different shots to provide a well-metered photo.

The headache of cutting around complex objects is also relieved, though not completely, thanks to the various Magic Wand tools and the interesting Match Background Colour option. The latter attempts to adjust the background in a cutout so it matches its new surroundings, but it only really works to its full potential when moving objects around in the same image with a similar background.

As expected, Photo Impact XL contains a plethora of special effect tools to spice up your images. These include new entries such as an Add Moon Filter (no prizes for guessing what this one does), a tool to add sunlight to photos taken in dull conditions and a diffraction filter to liven up images with rainbows. However, the truth is that most of them are far too intrusive or peculiar to actually add to the overall quality of the picture, but when it comes to reviving stagnant photos they're good for a bit of fun.

If you're looking to save images in CMYK format for four-colour printing, however, Photo Impact XL won't be able to help you out.

Those with knowledge of previous versions will have no problem working their way around Photo Impact XL, but newcomers might find the interface and maze of options a little hard to get the hang of. This certainly isn't an issue unique to Photo Impact XL; all advanced image editors take a fair amount of time to learn to use effectively. Despite the fact Ulead has included a 40-minute instruction video and a small selection of static tutorials, the help files aren't as useful, concise or coherent as they could be.

On the plus side, Ulead has done a sterling job in gathering together a decent selection of bonus software to complement Photo Impact XL. This includes Photo Explorer 8, which gives you a helping hand in organising and archiving your digital photos, and the panoramic image creator Cool 360. Also thrown in is a collection of 500 royalty-free images from Hemera Photo Objects and a series of madcap plug-ins from Alien Skin Eye Candy.

Photo Impact XL makes many improvements on the previous version, is loaded with features and is also reasonably priced at £69.99.

Contact: Ulead 01327 844 880
www.ulead.co.uk

System requirements:

• Pentium II
• Windows 98
• 64MB of Ram
• 450MB of free hard disk space