Corel's X3 Photo Editor

In the Windows world, photographers looking for an alternative to Adobe Photoshop that will save them cash without skimping on power typically have turned to Corel's (Nasdaq: CORL) PaintShop Photo Pro. The program has consistently kept pace with the evolving needs of shutterbugs over the years and the latest "X3" version (US$99) of the software continues that tradition.

Among the new features in X3 are a number of improvements to enhance a photographer's workflow. Workflow is important to shooters because once an image is captured, they are going to want to find it again eventually.

With X3, photos can be displayed in multiple views for quick scanning.

When a photog makes changes in one photo that he or she wants to apply to many images, it can be done with X3's new batch processing feature.

Express Lab, a feature that permits an imagesmith to apply multiple editing tools -- noise removal, sharpening, contrast adjustment and tone mapping -- with a single click has been enhanced to make it easier to use.

Local tone mapping is new to X3. It allows a shooter to modify the dynamic range of a photo. It's useful for recovering detail in a photo with large discrepancies between the light and dark areas in it.