With Photoshop CS and Elements costing so much, is there a gap for a high-powered, low-cost image editor such as Serif PhotoPlus X5?

Serif PhotoPlus X4 brings great photo editing tools at a great price

PhotoPlus is a very capable editor that's never quite escaped the shadow of Paint Shop Pro. Will version 11 be any different from its predecessors? Certainly not with regard to the interface: it's more cluttered, and not as straightforward for beginners.

Compared to the recent mass-adoption of photo editing programs, spurred on by the digital camera revolution, vector-based drawing has become something of a lost art.

Renowned for producing quality, cost-effective creativity software, Serif brings a typically logical layout to the latest version of its photo-album program.

If you received a digital camera for Christmas, it will have come with its own basic editing software. While this will be fine for the basics, you may find you'll soon outgrow it. Serif PhotoPlus X2 is the next logical step, as it's an introductory product that has plenty of tools to help you develop your skills.