The process for enhancing isolated areas of an image is unconventional, yet effective. After painting an effect over the section you want to manipulate, you tinker with sliders on a multiband Equalizer tool. Split-screen thumbnails allow you to compare before and after views of modifications. Heal, Smooth, Sharpen and Clone tools effortlessly revive blurry edges and smooth blemishes. The red-eye remover restores eyes to their original color, although you have to manually paint them.
Soap supports six image file formats.
Its colorful backgrounds and frames are comparable to the ones found in other programs, but I couldn't see much use for the hand-drawn cartoon clip art. Unremarkable text tools limit you to one font. Soap takes some getting used to, but it excels at tweaking colors and polishing images. PhotoStudio's traditional drop-down menus, color palette and floating toolbar seem outdated in comparison with the flashy interfaces of its competitors. But it does offer a high degree of user control.