This product from Ulead is one of a series I have been using for some eight years and I recommend it for serious photographers. There are wizards to assist the beginner to do many image correcting processes, but they are buried in the menus and would not be that easy for the beginner to find. I will use it extensively but would not begin to try to teach my wife how to use the program. There is quite a learning curve, but once learned, it is easy to use.

A few words about my background and interests. I consider myself a serious amateur photographer interested in travel and family albums which I am now showing on my computer. When I retired, I set myself the goal of digitizing my extensive collection of slides. My computers have been bought with that goal in mind. Although I use the web, I do not have my own web site and have no interest in having one; therefore, I have not reviewed the web hosting portions of the program which are extensive. I also do not like gimmicks in my photographs so some of those effects have not been reviewed. I have now changed to using a digital camera.

I originally bought Ulead after trying several other products. I read books on Photoshop and it certainly could be used to process imagery, but it did do much I was not interested in and I wondered about mastering any of it. Also, there was no slide show capability and of course, the price was very high. Ulead promised the processing and the slide show and I was not disappointed. There is now a simple slide show program available in Windows XP; however, it will only use the order of the images in one file. All the Ulead products have had album programs that allow images from various files and in an arbitrary order. The album files are pointers to where the files are stored; the image files are not needlessly duplicated filling up the hard drive.

In the past I have had problems registering my Ulead programs. This time the registration program would not accept the serial number I entered which was on a sticker on the CD envelope. Going to help, the buttons for FAQs worked, but the one for finding the serial number did not. Eventually I was able to get it registered, but it was not easy.

Several features really caught my attention. The High Dynamic Range feature is a greatly improved version of a feature in PhotoImpact 8. Since many scenes have a range of brightness that exceeds what the camera can record, film users have used split attenuating filters to even things out. Ulead provided the capability to take multiple tripod exposures that cover the dynamic range of the scene and then combine them into one proper image. On PhotoImpact 8 it worked nicely providing one used a steady tripod; if the images were not identical, the result looked out of focus, or worse. PhotoImpact XL added a preregistration and trimming step which should allow even handheld shots to be corrected.

A second feature claimed for PhotoImpact XL is the ability to take a series of pictures and to calibrate the camera. Then, with one improperly exposed image, correct the exposures.

I tested this feature with a series of photos taken from -3 to +3 stops in one stop intervals. I used the calibrated curve to correct the -3 stop exposure and it worked. I then used the image processing features to improve the image as much as I could and compared it to what I could do to the -3 stop image without the calibration. I really could not tell the difference between the two images. With the +3 stop image, nothing would change the image at all.

I conclude that the image registration step is a big improvement; the calibration is of marginal value. When a digital image is overexposed, the data is lost and nothing will coax it back.

PhotoImpact Explorer 8 is included in the package; however, there is no written documentation about this program other than a comment on the product box that one can "Create Photo-Slideshow CD". This is done through Explorer 8 which is a photo browser. It will provide computer monitor slide shows for Windows Operating Systems that do not have this capability; XP does. I was interested in burning CDs that could be played on any TV compatible DVD player. The obvious approach yielded a CD which was in the same image order as the file and displayed on the TV screen for an average of dwell time of 1.5 seconds, not the default 5 seconds.

After a series of interchanges of emails with Public Relations and tech service, (I did get responses), I was shown how to select an order for the show and how to use images from several files. I was told to use transitions and I would get an MP3 CD which would respond with the desired timing. After 27 minutes of formatting and burning, I obtained a CD that neither my TV nor my computer could read.

My last response from Ulead said the only way to really insure that a DVD player will play the disc is to use a DVD burner. I want to be able to take the slideshow to friends homes and have a slide show; this I cannot do. The System Requirements area on the box does not list this restriction.

Later in showing the PhotoImpact Album program I had been trying to write onto a CD, the show crashed. It seems Explorer 8 corrupted the links between the source file and the album file. Explorer does not include its own uninstaller; I used the Windows uninstaller to eliminate this poorly performing program.

A nice effect is adding the moon to an image. I previously had been playing with doing this with my own lunar image and PhotoImpact has a much easier approach. One can put the moon at any phase, any rotation, and any size anywhere in the image as well as change the tone of the picture. Presto-a daytime photo is a moon-light scene.

There is a screen capture program that can be preloaded before going on the web. I was able to get a printout of a procedure that did not allow print-ing. The image went directly into the image processing program.

There is a 294 page manual and a video tutorial included in the package. Ulead gets a big plus for even having a hard copy manual.

Some things are named in ways that do not seem to correspond to what one finds in the program. I found the tutorial not to be of much use. The images of the program screen were so small as not to be able to see what the pointer was indicating.

The filter possibilities include several I like. One is to make a blah sky blue; the other is to enhance to lighting to make it look like more sunshine. I took two images of Neuschwanstein last summer (the model for Disney's Magic Castle) so that I could get a pretty sky, the castle, which is white, is surrounded by dark green trees. The registration was not right and so I could not use the Dynamic Range Extender with PhotoImpact 8. I spent hours separating the castle from the sky and manipulating the various objects to enhance the photo.

In minutes on my first try with XL, I combined the images, enhanced the sky, and added sunlight for a much improved image.

The last nice filter is a color correction feature. Rather than try to guess what correction is needed, I am not very good at that, it provides an eyedropper to sample an area known to be neutral; a spot appears on a color wheel and the spot can be dragged to the center. I have found this very useful. The full program costs $89.95 and upgrades are $49.95. It requires Microsoft XP, 98, NT 4.0 SP6 and above, 2000, ME or Server 2003, Pentium II or above, CD-ROM drive, 64 MB RAM, 450 MB available on hard drive, 800X600 or more display resolution. Ulead Systems, Inc., 20000 Mariner Ave, Ste. 200, Torrance, CA 90503. Or contact Sharna Brocket, PR Manager, at 310-896-6388, ext. 162; or email: Sharna@ulead.com.

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