Microsoft Offers Easy Image Editing

If you’re ready to upgrade from the basic image editing software that shipped with your digital camera, take a look at Microsoft’s Digital Image Suite 10. The $129 package includes all the software tools you need for organizing and editing your growing digital photo collection.

At the heart of the shipping product I tested is Digital Image Library 10, a photo organizer that looks a lot like Windows XP Explorer. Library lets you easily upload your shots, rate them with up to five stars, flag them for future attention, label them with captions, and assign them keywords for easy categorization.

When you’re ready to begin editing your photos, you launch Digital Image Pro 10. Microsoft arranges the tools logically, and a set of Auto Fix commands makes completing basic changes easy. Tasks such as red-eye removal and panoramic stitching require little user intervention. Digital Image Pro provides fewer options and complex commands than competitors such as Adobe’s Photoshop Elements and Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro, but what you do get generally works very well.

The app’s simplicity can be a bit limiting, however. For example, unlike most editors Digital Image Pro 10 will let you work only on one image at a time, so you can’t try out different edits on side-by-side copies of the same photo.

Digital Image Suite 10 is a solid package, particularly for photographers ready to step up from basic image editing apps. Advanced users, however, may not appreciate the way the suite’s ease of use masks some control limitations.