Review by David Stapleton

I have been trying out a number of Corel products over the past year and cannot help but notice the trend simplicity, limited power (Corel Painter excepted, some true power utility there) or incompatibility with industry standards. [As a note, I am approaching this from the reference point of a prior career as a software engineer.]nnWith this product I had hoped to consolidate some of my disparate products that Corel had acquired over the past few years (PaintShop and ULead Video, mostly). Products that I have not upgraded because they still offer more than the replacement products currently offered by Corel. Subconsciously, I probably knew better. Software companies seldom bundle products without a reason, often because they are not selling enough of them separately and feel that they can get a little more mileage from a product by bundling it.

After testing through the elements of this suite, I have to say that the appropriate target audience is new/inexperienced users of photo/video editing software looking for a product that will give them the capability (albeit limited) to edit and organize their digital photos and videos. For that audience this product excels, any user with more experience will be left wanting.

I give the product 4 stars based upon its ability to fill the needs of what I assume is the target user, something that this product does well. I deduct one star for the invasiveness of the product (I really do hate the fact that every little application wants to drop a tag in my windows tray [we used to call them TSRs, terminate and stay resident], slowing my boot time and sucking up system resources).