Digital Image Suite 10 is the latest version of Microsoft's program aimed at making life easier for digital camera enthusiasts. Like the previous edition, it consists of two separate applications: Digital Image Library 10 helps you organise and store your pictures; while Digital Image Pro 10 allows you to perform a variety of image editing tasks.

On first use, Library searches for photos in your 'My Pictures' folder and arranges them in a catalogue. There is a useful option to scan your entire hard drive for remaining images, and you can import files from a digital camera or memory card reader.

Library does a good job of organising pictures without any user intervention. Images can be grouped according to the date they were snapped, or by the camera with which they were taken. One of the program's strongest features is its ability to assign keywords and ratings to each image, which makes searching for a particular photograph much easier.

Microsoft has added a couple of new features here, including the option to assign keywords and flags during full-scene previews. The other new inclusion is an updated version of Photo Story. This section allows you to create a moving slideshow presentation of your images, brought to life with zooming and panning effects across each picture.

Narration and background music can also be added. While you speak into the microphone, you can use the mouse to highlight specific areas of the photo you'd like to pan or zoom to. This is a useful function since Photo Story will occasionally focus on inappropriate parts of an image.

Photo Story presentations can be saved in wmv or Video CD formats and burned to a CD or DVD disc. Ordinary still photos can be saved in a number of ways.

As well as offering the usual picture formats, you can save images so the resulting file doesn't exceed a particular disk space limit. This is especially handy if you want to email pictures and your service provider imposes a size limit on attachments.

As in the previous edition, image editing is handled by the Digital Image Pro 10. Its main strength is ease of use, allowing most common editing tasks to be performed with just a few mouse clicks. Older versions of the software were fairly straightforward, but the new edition provides faster and more logical access to tools and auto-fixes.

Among these is red-eye correction. The program has an option that will automatically detect and remove red-eye, but in practice it proved woefully inadequate. The manual removal option works best, although you may have to perform the removal several times to get the desired effect.

Arguably the strongest and most useful feature is the Smart Erase tool. This comes in handy for photos that are perfect aside from unwanted objects in the foreground or background. This feature uses sophisticated pixel blending and selection to automatically remove redundant elements. Instead of leaving an unsightly piece of blank canvas, the program fills in the appropriate area with closely matching textures from outside your selection.

You can automatically adjust the levels of your photos to correct the brightness, contrast and colour saturation. It can definitely improve the quality of your snaps, but is no substitute for manual fine-tuning.

Another significant new addition is Intelligent Panoramic Stitching. This lets you take several ordinary snaps and stitch them together to make a single panoramic image. In practice it works well and can be manually adjusted until you achieve the perfect fit across your final photo.

Microsoft Digital Image Suite 10 is a well-featured, easy-to-use package that should appeal to digital camera enthusiasts. For those with a large collection of images, Library alone could be worth the asking price. However, unless you desperately need to create panoramic photos, the new additions don't provide enough reason to upgrade.

Contact: Microsoft 0870 601 0100
www.microsoft.com/uk/digitalimage

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