Wielding what is, at any price, one of the most powerful image editors on the planet requires the skills of an expert. Technical users who don't want to shell out 650 bucks for Photoshop CS3 and are willing to learn the nooks, crannies, and many idiosyncrasies of Ulead PhotoImpact 12 will be richly rewarded. But casual users seeking a fast and easy tool to clean up and distribute their images may get frustrated. They should turn, instead, to other sub-$100 programs that offer a smaller set of relevant features in user-friendlier interfaces.
PhotoImpact's new ExpressFix mode, for instance, has a wonderful side-by-side interface for correcting problems with exposure, color, focus, and the like, but it's flawed by illogical procedures and a confusing workflow. Here's one example: The top button, which you might presume to be the first you should apply, is Reduce Noise, which is usually the last filter applied, since you often can't see noise until you boost exposure.
The next control, the SmartCurves adjustment, enhances the dynamic range of an image by applying a camera curve—a set of adjustment parameters for your camera. You can't, however, select a camera from the ExpressFix window or even see which camera you've previously chosen; you have to use the regular menu. When you do choose SmartCurves in the menu, you exit the ExpressFix interface into a new window with a similar side-by-side display, but with different controls. Close this and you're back in ExpressFix.
Rather than putting its excellent White Balance adjustment along with other ExpressFix corrections, the adjustment button sits atop the side-by-side display, confusing the workflow further. Which do I do first: SmartCurves, white balance, color cast, or color saturation? Ditto for the red-eye adjustment, which should also sit with the other ExpressFix controls.
Where other programs Photoshop Elements and Noromis PhotoLab expose their automatic correction options in their side-by-side, image-adjustment interface, PhotoImpact does not, forcing you to access correction options from the menus. When you click buttons for Overall Exposure or Color Cast in the ExpressFix interface, the program displays three tiny thumbnails you must choose from, but they're far too small to provide useful detail.
Rotate a landscape image to Portrait mode in the side-by-side before-and-after display mode, and the before image stays on its side, which makes logical sense but is decidedly unhelpful for further editing. By contrast, Photoshop Elements rotates the before image as well, which is undoubtedly what all users would want.
Offical website : http://www.ulead.com/pi/
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