Ease of Use:  

In previous reviews of PhotoPlus products, we knocked them for being less than easy to use. Its interface hasn’t changed a great deal since then, so it must be noted that with any photo editing program, a beginner must take time to become familiar with basic photo editing concepts. PhotoPlus X3’s Help System is rife with tutorials, most notably a Key Concepts tutorial detailing things like cropping, resizing, layers, saving, exporting, and so on. When you first open PhotoPlus X3, you have a few options that’ll help you get started quickly. The Getting Started guide will help you, well, get started. The Welcome column also provides helpful links to 25 PhotoPlus X3 tutorials.

One feature we found very useful was the Quick Fix Studio. Quick Fix Studio takes many of the common tweaks and tools and puts them into one easy to use window. Sharpening, Red Eye Removal, Cropping, Blemish Removal and Color Scale are just a few of the options available, and it’s easy to figure out how to use the tools without consulting the help system. Some improvements PhotoPlus X3 brings to the table that previous versions did not is the addition of black and white film, more accurate navigator tabs and new histograms for easy data compilation.
 

Importing:  

Open images from a digital camera or import from a scanner. There is no automatic transferring of photos when you plug in your digital camera.  You can also capture images from the Web with Screen Capture. 

Editing:  

General editing includes removing blemishes, getting that pesky fence out of the background, and eliminating other unwanted elements, and PhotoPlus X3 does all these fairly well. Automatic Level and Contrast adjustment is an option, if you don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty world of channels, gamma, hues, or saturation. But we recommend playing with the different adjustment options available, of which PhotoPlus X3 has a multitude.

Every family has a crass uncle who has a penchant for ruining family photos with his “hilarious” t-shirts. Similar to Adobe Photoshop’s Clone Stamp tool, PhotoPlus X3 has a nice Clone tool that allows easy removal of pesky logos or shirt text. In addition, PhotoPlus X3 has the ability to open and tinker with 48-bit images, allowing you to edit relatively bland images into works of art.

If you’ve been dying to hop on that LOLCAT trend that’s been around for years, PhotoPlus X3’s text editing tool has been vastly improved and now shows real time text entry, and while not perfect or as simple as in other programs, manipulation of the text and size is much easier than it was in previous versions.

Much of the editing can be done via the various tools in the toolbar. To a beginner, the toolbar can be somewhat intimidating, so PhotoPlus X3 has the Quick Fix Studio full of most of the common tools all in one neat little window. You can view your changes in real time with the Before and After pane enabled, and if you dislike any changes made, just hit the Cancel button and you’re back to the original.