Rating: 
Summary: A great tool for the non-professional
Review: I've got a great digital camera. I enjoy taking pictures of the friends and family. I've got photoshop 7 and I know how to use about 5% of it. I don't have the time to take the class to learn the software. I picked up Digial Pro 9 on a whim and as it turns out, I LOVE IT. It's easy to use and it does everything that matters to me. Now sure it might be nice to convert the picture over to a water color painting with the granite sandstone filter applied and blah blah blah... whatever. I just want my pictures to look better and to have a little more control to remove a few things that I don't want in them. With Digital Pro 9, it's easy and fast. I am sold. I use Pro 9 all the time now, my pictures look great and I'm VERY happy. Don't let people turn you off to this product. I'm not a pro microsoft advocate, but I've got to tell you, this is good software. You'll pick it up quickly and and do more in an hour than you did in 10 hours with photoshop 7 (unless your a professional in which case what are you doing looking at this review, it's for the normal people).Good luck.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful easy-to-use product
Review: I've used MS PictureIt! Photo Premium 2001 (v. 5.x) for the past few years and loved its simplicity, even though it had a couple of limitations. Despite serious efforts to learn Jasc PhotoShop Pro, the learning curve just was more than I was ever able to totally absorb, and I always found myself deferring back tothe MS product. Considering Adobe's PhotoShop Elements concerned me that it would still carry some of the difficulties of use that go along with it's full PhotoShop parent, to which others have confirmed to be true.
In looking at upgrading, I struggled betweeen choosing the newer MS PictureIt! Photo Premium 9, and getting this product which was not that much more expensive. (I had no use for all the photo cataloging and management features of the more expensive MS Digital Image Pro Suite.) I was afraid that getting the this middle-of-the-three product might be more difficult than the very easy program I'd been used to.
Well, I bought it, and I LOVE it. I definitely made the right choice. The program has an improved interface, some new features that are really terrific, the ability to control a lot of things more precisely (like actually being able to choose a font's point size!).
The program loads quicker than my old product and I've had no stability problems. I'm able to easily undo any action I perform. A few things have been moved around from where I'm used to being able to find them, but everything that I need seems to be here (and more!). It's also wonderful to have the choice to hide the COMMON TASKS, FILES, and STACK palettes to get more canvas room, when needed.
It even ships with a 1" thick paperback manual that offers instruction as well as tips on taking great photographs in the first place. I am TOTALLY satisfied with this purchase, and think that you will be too.
Rating: 
Summary: Things to know before upgrading...
Review: If you are a user of DIP7 you may want to stick with what you have. Although there are many new features such as smart erase and updated menus, there are a few kinks.
Examples...If you apply an effect to an image - conrast, edges, transparency etc. - once you click done you cannot adjust that particular setting again. For example, if you want to make an object transparent so you can work behind it, you will not be able to restore that object to its original state when you are done. The same goes for soft edges. If you feel you would like to adjust the edge you applied a few steps back, you're out of luck. I personally don't know why they call it an upgrade if they remove features as well. Overall, this is a great program and if you've never used another version of DIP you might be satisfied, but if you have... consider it carefully before upgrading.
Rating:
Summary: Inaccurate review given
Review: Just an FYI, you *CAN* undo transparency, soft edges, etc, unlike mentioned above. No features were removed...in fact many were added to DIP 9
Rating:
Summary: A great tool for the non-professional
Review: Microsoft has enhanced Picture It Pro 9 with many uselful features - Batch Editing; Picture Straightening; Cut-Out tools; filters, etc. PI Pro 9 has enough tools to satisfy even the most demanding Prosumer. HOWEVER, the program is very unstable, especially if you do a lot of composites as I do. You can be assured that the program will crash at least once every session while working on "complex" compositions using multiple image files. Many complaints have been registered with MS Customer Service (check out some of the other feedbacks sites) but yet no patches or updates have been issued. If you want "professional" resutls go with PhotoShop.
Rating: 
Summary: Versatile Program - But Too Many Crashes
Review: Microsoft has enhanced Picture It Pro 9 with many uselful features - Batch Editing; Picture Straightening; Cut-Out tools; filters, etc. PI Pro 9 has enough tools to satisfy even the most demanding Prosumer. HOWEVER, the program is very unstable, especially if you do a lot of composites as I do. You can be assured that the program will crash at least once every session while working on "complex" compositions using multiple image files. Many complaints have been registered with MS Customer Service (check out some of the other feedbacks sites) but yet no patches or updates have been issued. If you want "professional" resutls go with PhotoShop.
Rating: 
Summary: Great start for an image editor, overwrote "my Pictures"
Review: On install the 1st problem encountered was that it replaced my pictures folder, with another containing only "sample picture", yep it took out a folder on install with no request or user action to do so. Regardless of how it works as an image editor such behaviour precludes its further use.
This program seems to be unsupported by MicroSoft, least their support site won't let you mail them on it, so when it does hack up your file structure. SO program cost me $15 recovery effort on pictures, over $50. Just wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Brian is right
Review: The first reviewered probably missed some of the features and thought them removed because they have moved. But the interface is better than before, and if you are new to this program you'll like how easy it is. It has both basic and more advanced editing tools. If you want simple photo editing, get Picture It Photo Premium 9, but this program gives you more control over how you edit.
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