PhotoPerfect

A picture's quality is not entirely related to a camera's hardware and software. An important factor is how you use it. If you are not satisfied with your pictures, you can always adjust them with an image editor. PhotoPerfect can be used to make these adjustments. It combines powerful editing features with the simplicity of a basic image processor.

Advanced image editors usually take up a lot of disk space and they come on one or more DVDs. With PhotoPerfect, you just have to download a setup file. It is almost 22 Mb large, which may take longer to download with a slower Internet connection, but you will make up for lost time with the installation process.

The number of options, placed around the main working area, may intimidate you at first, but there is nothing to be scared of. The software will do most of the work for you. Many features involve using a series of sliders, while others involve clicking and dragging over the loaded image or they can apply an effect instantly.

With the aid of a tree menu, in the lower right area of the interface, you can navigate through the folders on your hard drive. If you select an image folder, its content will be displayed on the lower area of the main window and you can load one by dragging and dropping it over the editing area.

You will find various tools for adjusting an image's brightness, contrast, color or white balance and more. The involved options are brought up on separate windows, with the aid of the buttons on the left edge of the interface. Some of them will require a bit more knowledge, but the core adjustments can be made by dragging simple sliders.

A feature which makes PhotoPerfect really useful is a list of processing resources. It consists of pre-made settings which can be found in a tree menu, on the left area of the interface. Double clicking one of the items will open a new preview of the image, with a series of options. The settings are already made and you can just click an Execute button and the image will be modified. It is possible, of course, to change the settings before executing. In this way, you can resize or crop an image to certain standards, apply different optimization settings, prepare it for Ebay and more. You will also find macros in the same tree menu. They will apply a series of effects to the loaded image. Between each automatic task, a message will pop up, telling you what the software will do, just like in a tutorial.