The Voice of Mom

If you love to edit photos, I have a great software program to tell you about. I received the Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate to review for all of you. Since it was a review copy, it didn’t come with the manual — but no matter.  I did the best I could to explore the many features. I generally have a good experience with the Corel products I’ve had in the past, so I was excited to get the opportunity.

It took about 10 minutes to completely install the program.  I always jump in to see what I can do to change the image. I like the selection of picture frames available. You can even choose to put the picture completely inside or lay it over the existing edge of the picture. The artistic effects and art media selections can make your picture look like a pencil sketch, poster, chalk, and more. Each option has tolerances built in to adjust the final result. Each time you adjust the settings, the picture preview shows you what it will look like or you can do preview on image.

It’s easy to add text and clipart. They have thought bubbles and speech boxes, all size adjustable. I like to make my own collages and it was fairly easy to do that from reading through the help index. There is an entire section to retouch and restore your photos. You can remove blemishes with one click, a great feature for my less-than-perfect skin. You can apply a suntan, in various intensities, or whiten your teeth! I bet they have this for those celebrity magazines! You can scan in a scratched image and use these to remove them. I was able to restore some colors that were faded out as well.

Overall, I really think this is my favorite photo editing program I’ve ever played with. It’s so easy to apply changes and take them back off to do something different. I think I’ve put a good 20 hours in just this week exploring this program alone. This is going to help me make holiday cards and post cards for the family for sure. I’m not a huge fan of help indexes on any program, so the manual that usually comes with this would be very helpful to new users (again, mine didn’t come with one because it was a review copy). Personally, I like flipping through books to read what I’m trying to accomplish with my photo. You can read more on Corel’s website about Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate.

Cost? It’s $49.99 right now at Amazon with free shipping.