VERDICT: Plenty of core new power for the digital camera user – but Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is still playing catch-up.

Over its long history Paint Shop Pro has built up a great deal of bitmap editing power, but it has also come to seem dated and increasingly out of tune with the times...

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VERDICT: A new interface, smart albums, guided editing and photo merging but comparatively little to boost core efficiency.

Organizing and enhancing thousands of digital photographs is a time-consuming task and the digital camera owner needs dedicated help to make the process as productive and enjoyable as possible...

Microsoft pulls off an extraordinary feat reinventing desktop application design, but it's only the taste of things to come regarding the web.

For years now there has been talk of Microsoft’s determination to move into the design software territory normally associated with Adobe. Now, with the launch of the Expression Studio suite, the talk is over – so how does it shape up?

VERDICT: Bizarrely antiquated and underpowered creative asset management.

To give a general boost to its professional design credentials and in particular to its Expression Studio suite, Microsoft decided that it needed an application for managing media assets and so bought up iView MediaPro 3...

VERDICT: Should be central to the CS3 suite but Bridge CS3 is comparatively disappointing.

The Bridge application was introduced in the previous CS2 release and, as its name suggests, is designed to integrate the different members of the CS3 suite by acting as a central media management hub.

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VERDICT: Best-of-breed photo management, editing and sharing with great usability and value – what more do you want?

VERDICT: Paint Shop Pro Photo XI is moving in the right direction but it’s not easy teaching an old dog new tricks.

Paint Shop Pro (PSP) is a long-established and popular software brand, but over the years it has come to seem dated – an old-style bitmap editor rather than an up-to-date PC Photography package.

It’s a perception that new owner, Corel, is determined to address as shown by the recent release’s change of name to Paint Shop Pro Photo (PSPP).

VERDICT: For a new release Snapfire already looks old-fashioned and terminally unexciting – but at least the basic version is free.

Corel describes its new Snapfire program as a “next-generation modular digital imaging platform” designed to provide “all the tools users need to easily organise, enhance and share their digital photos”. That sounds ideal - especially as Corel is providing the program for free from its new Snapfire.com site.

RECOMMENDED

VERDICT: Modern photo management software that’s a pleasure to use and which offers some surprising power –especially considering that it’s free.

Since 2004, when Google bought up Picasa and began giving it away for free, the software has been developing quite a name for itself along with a growing userbase.

VERDICT: Some reasonable hands-on editing power but image management and sharing are seriously disappointing.

Serif PhotoPlus is not well-known, but it’s now in its eleventh release so it must be doing something right.