If an overexposed photograph makes your home's paint job appear washed out, you can tweak its brightness before you print the real estate brochure. Each application underwent the same testing. The rest of the programs offer extra features ripe for the picking. Cool effects filters can change the entire look of your photo, giving it the appearance of an impressionist landscape, say, or dripping wet paint. Other tools can make your photo appear to be composed of a mosaic of smaller images, sketched in charcoal, or drawn on a wad of just-uncrumpled paper.
Advanced programs allow impressive control over effects.
If you want to create a mosaic effect using Adobe Photoshop 5, for example, you can change not only the size of the tiles, but also the color and thickness of the grouting between them. But simple editing applications have some nifty extras as well. For example, Picture It offers templates for flyers and business cards and lets you mat your pictures, much as a frame shop would. Its numerous how-to wizards not only assist in the completion of tasks but also educate users about the process of basic photo editing. It's bargain-basement price and ease of use compensate for its inability to perform some tasks in our advanced tests.