Take a day out with your digital camera and you can easily come home with a whole card full of photos that need sorting out and enhancing. The Quick Fix modes of image-editing programs such as Photoshop Elements and Serif PhotoPlus try to speed things alo...

Excellent Express Lab, Improved interface, Fast and highly effective

Some features a little gimmicky

Fast, powerful and highly enjoyable, this is by far the best image-editing package for the price

When the cameras swoop into the edit room during a hectic live television broadcast or a solemn appraisal of documentary footage you'll almost always see desk-sized systems with large monitors and hundreds of brightly coloured keys

Clean, slick interface, Excellent transitions

Basic version lacking in too many areas, System-hungry

Trimmed to the point of mediocrity

This is a general-purpose video DVD authoring package and so the list of features will sound familiar by now, but if you haven't head the name before don't be put off - there's a lot to like

Great range of features, Good value for money

No backup application

A poweful program that can create good-looking videos

Snap, crackle and pop. If you're eating a bowl of Rice Krispies then all well and good. However, if your analogue recordings of yesteryear are infested with such unwanted audio baggage then it's time to do something about it

Auto or manual options, Range of file formats

Surround sound is fiddly

Packed with music-friendly features at a decent price

Think image editing that's sophisticated without breaking the bank and you're probably automatically thinking of Adobe Photoshop Elements, or possibly even Paint Shop Pro. By comparison, Ulead PhotoImpact tends to get a lot less press...

Excellent range of features, Great white balance tool, Attractive price

Some filters take time to apply

An excellent budget image-editing suite, with a wealth of tools per pound

Photoshop Elements needs very little by way of introduction. Previous editions have taken much of the power of the world's favourite professional image-editing program and delivered it to the mass market, at around one-tenth of the price.

Colour Curves tool, Dodging and burning tools, Quick Fix and Full Edit modes, Good organisational features

You can't buy better at the price

Your PC isn't always the most convenient place for viewing digitalphotos, while creating glossy prints can be a time-consuming and costly alternative

Not overly expensive, Asset tagging for faster searching

Lacking in quality features, Can't create multiple slideshows on a DVD

A quick and easy solution, but one that lacks real power

Gone are the days when you'd have to head down to the store and pick up a slideshow maker, a video maker, a video capture tool, a CD burning tool, an image editor and so on and so forth

Excellent range of features

Jack of all trades means master of none

Great value, but better individual packages are available

It may add weight to this review if we first concede that we're hugefans of Adobe Premiere Elements. It's to the credit of Ulead and its obvious efforts to not only keep up but possibly usurp the marketleaders, that we find ourselves impressed

A solid piece of software, Includes Flash animations

Nothing special, A little pricey

This is another editing marvel, but unfortunately no new ground is broken

The 'what you see is what you get' philosophy seldom applies to digital photography. It's common for image files to lose more than a little in the translation from reallife splendour

Ease of use, Value for money

Powerful and very easy to use, a one-stop shop for curing your photographic ills.