Corel PaintShop Pro Photo X3, Educational Version

* Organize your photos easily
* Edit images fast (with Express Lab) - and/or use advanced editing options
* Edit HD photos and movies
* New 'Object Extractor' removes unwanted elements
* New RAW Lab
* New Batch Processing
* New Integrated Projects option for creating photo books, slide shows or cards
* Enhanced sharing for Facebook, YouTube and Flicker


Our opinion:

Corel Paint ShopPro Photo X3 is the ideal choice for any aspiring photographer's digital darkroom. It's filled with easy automatic photo fixes and precision editing tools.

Compared to other image editing software, Corel's PaintShop Pro X3 is much better value and has a lot more features than other products of this price category. The new features allowing users to edit HD video, RAW images and Batch Processing makes this image editing software the best deal on the market. Highly recommended ****


Manufacturer's description:

* All new Organizer:
The new integrated Organizer includes tools for rating, tagging, locating and quickly touching up image files. The Organizer also makes it easy to select images and view them in multiple ways. In just a few clicks, RAW images can be converted to another format for posting, photo sharing or printing.

* Multi-photo Adjustments:
Editing and enhancing is faster than ever now that changes made to an image can be captured and easily applied to multiple photos, removing the tedium of making the same changes over and over again.

* Smart Carver:
Quickly achieve impressive results by seamlessly and realistically removing objects and scaling without distorting the image.

* Express Lab:
Bringing the most used tools together in one place, the Express lab now adds Colour Balance, Local Tone Mapping, Contrast/Brightness, Sharpen and One Step Noise Removal.

* Camera RAW Lab:
Supporting more than 350 RAW formats, the new RAW Lab makes it easy to adjust a variety of settings, such as white balance, exposure, brightness and saturation before processing. Adjustments made to any RAW image can be copied and applied to other RAW images in the Organizer.

* Object Extractor:
It's quick and easy to precisely mask fine image details that are otherwise difficult to preserve - even challenging cases such as fly-away hair, wisps of smoke and tree branches.

* Project Creator: This one-stop tool makes it easy to create, edit and share projects. Produce photo books, collages, cards, calendars and photo slideshows including HD video in a few clicks. Share to YouTube, Facebook or Flickr. Photo projects can also be printed through Corel's online print service.


Express Lab highlights:

* Straighten Tool:
Users can easily straighten crooked images by simply specifying a line along an image feature that should be horizontal or vertical, such as the horizon or a building.

* Smart Photo Fix:
In a single click, Smart Photo Fix analyzes an image and suggests settings for auto-correcting brightness, shadows, highlights, and saturation.

* New! Local Tone Mapping:
This new tool increases the dynamic range in a photo, drawing more detail out of image areas, such as clouds, sky, stone, and sand.

* New! Colour Balance:
Any number of factors - for example, the type of lighting used, the processing that occurs inside the camera, or whether an image was scanned - can cause incorrect colouring in photos. Using the Colour Balance Tool to cool or warm colours, photo enthusiasts can improve a photo dramatically.

* New! Adjust Contrast/Brightness:
Incorrect exposure levels can ruin an otherwise great shot. The Adjust Contrast/Brightness tool lets users salvage those photos by quickly brightening underexposed images and darkening overexposed images.

* Makeover Tool:
The Makeover Tool has five modes for improving how subjects in a photo look. The Toothbrush mode quickly whitens discoloured teeth, the Suntan Brush mode adds colour to pale, washed-out skintones, and the Blemish Fixer mode can remove over blemishes. In addition, the Thinify mode helps people lose those pounds the camera sometimes adds, and the Eye Drop mode takes the red out of bloodshot eyes.

* Clone Tool:
Imperfections can be easily corrected using the Clone Tool to copy detail from one part of a photo to another, replacing the flawed image area with detail from the source location.

* Red Eye Tool:
One of the most common problems in photos is red-eye, but the Express Lab offers an easy solution. Users can remove red-eye from their photos in a click.

* New! Sharpen Tool:
With a simple click-and-drag, photo enthusiasts can sharpen pixels.

* New! One Step Noise Removal:
'Noise' artifacts - small specks of colour that interfere with the clarity of the image - are one of the most common problems in digital photography. The Express Lab offers one-step, automatic noise removal.

* One-click photo rating:
Digital photographers can assign ratings to their photos with a single click, so they can quickly find their favourites when sorting images. Other tools are also located around the perimeter of the photo window for rotating and saving images.