Rating: 
Summary: Great for some things, mediocre for others ...
Review: As a user of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements 2.0, Paint Shop Pro, Photo Impact Pro, etc ... ( I have just about all of them), I decided to purchase Digital Image Pro 9 after using a simple version of Microsoft Picture it! that came bundled with a new computer I bought and got very good printing results. This program is very user friendly and while it doesn't have the advanced features of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro such as layers and such, it has some features that are worth the price of the program alone. PROS:
*** The "Smart Erase" tool is fantastic!! It saves a lot of time from using the clone tool and it's amazing how it will erase an object from the picture and fill it in with the surrounding background. I even erased a small tear that was halfway into a doorway and half on the door frame and after circling the tear, it magically removed the tear and reconstructed the half on the doorway, and the half on the door frame seamlessly in one click!
*** Cropping is a breeze! There are presets for sizes (4x6, 5x7, etc..) or you can custom crop. The whole process takes all of about 10 seconds.
*** The printing of photos is very easy and the colors come out very close to the originals without having to calibrate your monitor like they suggest in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. There's absolutely no learning curve in printing from Digital Image Pro 9. Just preview and print!
*** Other very good tools are the "Straighten Photo" tool which couldn't be simpler! You simply click one end of the edge of the photo and stretch the line to the other corner and hit "enter" and bang! Photo straightened! Also, the fix redeye, remove dust, remove scratches, and remove wrinkles tools work better than any of the other programs I use. CONS:
*** The clone tool is "horrible"! Unlike the Adobe products, there's no way to "unalign" the clone point when you first start brushing. Which means, If you click a point a half inch to the left of where you want to "clone", that point follows you around wherever you're painting which makes it very diffucult to work with intricate patterns or areas with a lot of specks or dust. With Photoshop or Elements, you can set a point and just keep cloning from that point, which is usually a clean area with no dust or specks, without having it follow you around to points that you haven't cleaned up yet.
*** It won't handle very large files. On a few occasions, I scanned pictures at very high resolution (2400 dpi) and saved them in TIFF format. When I went to open one of those files in this program, it wouldn't open it with a message that read " not enough memory" to open the file. The files did however, open up with no problem in Photoshop Elements.
*** A few of the other tools aren't very good. The "remove spots or blemishes" tool just puts a big blurry "dot" in place of the spot or blemish that you're trying to remove, with a color that is similar but not always the same as the surrounding color. They should've just left this tool out because you can get much better results with the clone brush or the smart erase tool. The "blending" tool is just mediocre as is the "adjust lighting" tool. Overall, this is now the program I use the most for my basic photo editing needs and printing photos that don't need a lot of work or special effects. It's very quick, intuitive, user friendly, and has everything the average user needs to edit and print great looking photos. If you're a collector of photo editing programs like it am, this is definitely one that is a must have!
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible Performance... Clunky Interface
Review: First, I am not a Microsoft basher, but this is one of the worst programs I have ever used. I planned to migrate to this from ACDSee based on some photo mag reviews. What were those people thinking who wrote the review??? I tried using it's Mini-Lab feature to edit 66 3.1 Megapixel images. Just to open the photos before any action could be taken took minutes, about 20X longer than with my old ACDSee program, I even had to reboot the first time as it seemed to be churning and opening one pic per 30 seconds (on a 2 GHz Pentium.) Also, the interface is clunky and if you accidentally open files instead of batch edit, it takes a while to figure out how to edit more than one pic. All in all, a waste of money and I will be returning to Microsoft for my 30 day money back check.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible Performance... Clunky Interface
Review: First, I am not a Microsoft basher, but this is one of the worst programs I have ever used. I planned to migrate to this from ACDSee based on some photo mag reviews. What were those people thinking who wrote the review??? I tried using it's Mini-Lab feature to edit 66 3.1 Megapixel images. Just to open the photos before any action could be taken took minutes, about 20X longer than with my old ACDSee program, I even had to reboot the first time as it seemed to be churning and opening one pic per 30 seconds (on a 2 GHz Pentium.) Also, the interface is clunky and if you accidentally open files instead of batch edit, it takes a while to figure out how to edit more than one pic. All in all, a waste of money and I will be returning to Microsoft for my 30 day money back check.
Rating:
Summary: For Regular People
Review: For those who aren't professional photo editors, let's be honest with each other: how many of us have bought the professional programs that professionals recommend, and then find that the learning curve is so difficult that we don't use them? I have several other photo editing programs: Photoshop Elements 2.0, Paint Shop Pro. I kept buying the next one because the "pros" recommended them. I found that to learn EACH task it took from 1/2 to 1 hour. There is NO simplicity to anything with those programs. They can do awesome things, I just don't have the time to figure out how to do EACH and EVERY ONE. Using MS Digital Image Pro, it is set up so simple, you can just make a few clicks and almost every task can be accomplished. I've imported many photos into the program, modified them easily and quickly, and then placed them into a video which I burned to DVD's for projects at work. I received quite a number of complements from other "non-professionals" on the quality of the changes. I was also able to easily make modifications for pictures of my family which came out very nice. If you're looking for a professional, extremely extensive program, perhaps you might want to look at the other ones. But if you're like me and want a fun program that also will deal with 90% of common tasks, this will save you a lot of frustration.
Rating: 
Summary: Great features - not stable
Review: Having gone through pictureit & DIP-7 we thought this would add some features and resolve some of the stability problems. But, this version is less stable and says some features are "not implemented". It seems to loose system resources, making us have to reboot. It will not edit pictures in a composite any more. Overall, it just does not feel like quality software. After several years with pictureit, it may be time to move to adobe.
Rating: 
Summary: In general
Review: I can't address the advisability of upgrading but I can give my impressions of the program. I have had a dark room since I was 12 (I am 51 now) and only recently came to digital. This is by far the best and easiest program I have found for the serious amateur. While Adobe Print Shop may have more to offer the professional it is far too cumbersome and complex (not to mention expensive) for the amateur. I have done so much with this program and truly enjoy working on it.
Rating:
Summary: Great for the average user that wants decent results now
Review: I have been using Adobe Element 2.0 for nearly a year, and Digital Image Pro for only about 3 months, and I must say I can accomplish the same amount of work with Digital Image Pro in a fraction of the time compared to Elements. I actually enjoy using both programs for different tasks, but quite honestly, I find myself gravitating more and more to Digital Image Pro, as I wear "several hats" in my work and due to time pressures, I simply don't have the time to learn the full functionality of Elements, or its sometimes painstakingly unintuitive program design. In contrast, when I use Digital Image Pro, I feel I am "cutting right to the chase" and getting my task work done, without the need for wasting time constantly referring to a manual. This is not to say I plan to give up on Elements; but if you're a novice like myself, you will likely find Digital Image Pro to be more enjoyable and productive program to use.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not Photoshop
Review: I've always used Adobe Photoshop in the past and have loved it. But, we recently upgraded our computer, so our old Photoshop is no longer compatible. So, we went with Digital Image Pro 9. It has alot of what Photoshop offered, but the layout and the way toolbars and task bars are presented is horrible. I think the product was created to help those who have very little image enhancement skills. I would like to see Digital Image allow me to do some manual enhancements and changed to my photos and images. Overall, it's doing its job, but with some slight frustrutions. I just purchased it a couple days ago and am still trying to find a way to customize my toolbars...don't think it's even an option! I'm also looking for a way to make the background of an image transparent so that it can go on a website without a block of white around it. So far, no can do.
If you have the money, go with Adobe Photoshop which is quite pricey, but worth it in the long run.
Rating:
Summary: It's not Photoshop
Review: I've always used Adobe Photoshop in the past and have loved it. But, we recently upgraded our computer, so our old Photoshop is no longer compatible. So, we went with Digital Image Pro 9. It has alot of what Photoshop offered, but the layout and the way toolbars and task bars are presented is horrible. I think the product was created to help those who have very little image enhancement skills. I would like to see Digital Image allow me to do some manual enhancements and changed to my photos and images. Overall, it's doing its job, but with some slight frustrutions. I just purchased it a couple days ago and am still trying to find a way to customize my toolbars...don't think it's even an option! I'm also looking for a way to make the background of an image transparent so that it can go on a website without a block of white around it. So far, no can do.
If you have the money, go with Adobe Photoshop which is quite pricey, but worth it in the long run.
Rating:
Summary: Unacceptable for Web Photo Editing
Review: I've been using Microsoft's "PhotoDraw" for several years to resize, sharpen and do minor touch-ups (contrast and brightness) on photos for websites. I figured it was time to upgrade, so I purchased Digital Image Pro 9. The "Pro" in the title is completely misleading -- in my opinion, this is a very amatuer photo editing application designed for novices to choose a few of the built-in, automatic photo enhancing features like redeye reduction and not for any manual photo touch-up. I normally resize 3MB .jpg's directly from a camera to 300 pixels wide for insertion on my websites. I have found that photos can NOT be resized smaller in Digital Pro 9 without serious and unacceptable loss of pixels and quality. This is almost unbelievable, because I had no problems resizing photos with PhotoDraw (which Microsoft no longer sells or supports) nor with PhotoShop Elements. Correspondence on Microsoft's community discussion group for the product confirmed that resizing without severe quality loss is not possible with Digital Pro 9. I've basically thrown my money away. Also to consider is that the menu structure of Digital Pro 9 is different than other Microsoft products and not very intuitive; many functions have no "back" button. I don't recommend this product for even basic photo editing.
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