Cut-price Photoshop rival unveils latest software

Serif's photo editing tool PhotoPlus isn't really a tool for pro designers or photographers, but it's still surprisingly capable. And for those who only want to do a small amount of photo editing, it's worth a look.

The free version is a good stop-gap for those on a tight budget, while the full-priced tool is still a fraction of the cost of Photoshop.

Today Serif releases the latest version, PhotoPlus X7. Retailing at £79.99, it's available directly from Serif. The new features include:

• A new Lab Colour Mode, which ensures changes to skin tones, backgrounds and objects look more natural, while allowing you to separately edit contrast and colours quickly and easily.
• A new Lens Correction Filter, which enables you to correct lens distortion, lens vignette and chromatic aberration. It can also straighten images and correct vertical and horizontal lens perspective problems with the on-screen alignment grid.
• A dedicated Warp Studio, which enables you to correct photo portraits and add interesting effects. Users can use grids to visualise warps precisely and also protect certain aspects of an image while editing the rest of the photo.
• New Vivid Light, Hard Mix and Pin Light blend modes to increase colour contrasts, add vintage styles and increase and decrease light and dark areas.
• A new Halftone Screen Filter, whch enables you to add line screen and circular styles to create pattern effects.
• A new Startup Assistant to help you jump straight into a new or ongoing project in just a couple of clicks.
• Improvements to the Clarity Filter, Clone Tool, Raw Compatibility, Photo Display
• Faster and smoother brushes
• Five new photographic presets to create retro effects
• Better display of images
• Support for JPG XR