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By
Avanquest Software
 Wonderful stuff, a great gift, 2008-11-24
I am very impressed with this product. Everything is made easy.
I am someone who has a vague interest in sorting out my family tree but does not know precisely where to start -- whether it be gathering the information; where to get the information; how to organise it; how to present it.
Well, this software does it all. It is extremely user-friendly and comes with six months subscription to ancestry.co.uk which has lots of records about family that are easily searchable.
If you're looking for a quirky gift for a family member who has time on their hands then this is ideal, I would say.
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List Price: £39.99
Our Price: £24.43
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By
Adobe Systems Inc.
 A great photo editing package for home users, 2008-09-06
Presently on PcPro's `A-List', Adobe Elements is a cut down version of Adobe's £500+ Photoshop/Photoshop Extended CS4, and costs considerably less while still having a lot of useful photo editing capabilities. Photoshop CS4 has a steep learning curve, but Photoshop elements is far more home-user friendly. A lot of the program is geared towards image storage and management of the photos on your hard drive, helping with emailing, web output and scrapbooks of your images. The program can auto-downloads your images from the camera to folders, set up using the date, and can even process the images, say automatically removing red-eye, while it does it. Using stacks you can set up image databases [smart albums] using keywords like names, places, events, etc.., and you can even search using visual tags within the image. That said, I shun the image database options offered by Photoshop Elements and Extended, preferring the simplicity of logical folder names instead. Also, like PhotoShop, the image database side isn't seamlessly integrated into the image editing side [to the point where it's actually annoying]. The trendy charcoal 'white text on grey' interface is also style over function, you find it harder to read than black text on white, and more importantly to tell which photo window is active - professional PhotoShop CS3 users are far better served with standard Windows colours.
New to Elements 7 is a new Quick Fix tool to soften surfaces while keeping the edge and detail sharp - i.e. a blur tool, which can help to remove unwanted image noise. Plus there's a new Scene Cleaner tool that can brush away undesirable objects from a photo [so you can ditch that car or tourists from the view] and there's now a Smart Brush which lets you instantly apply effects to a selected area of the image. Plus Element's 7 sports a new single step `whiten teeth', 'make grass greener' and `make the sky blue' tool - but this is little more than streamlining tools within Quick Select and Adjustment Layer Presets that were available on Elements 6. Besides Adobe's suggestion of using the tool to whiten teeth and add a suntan to say Aunt Doris's face may make her look a little ridiculous. Also new in Element's 7 will be a free subscription to Photoshop.com, a special service Adobe has devised to bring friends together by providing quick access to on-line backup, storage, and sharing capabilities. You get 2GB of on-line storage, `enough for up to 1,500 photos', so you can view your photos from virtually anywhere. Thus Photoshop Elements goes `Facebook', allowing you to share your photos `in fun, interactive ways via invitation-only'. For these `Online Albums' you will get new [quite fun] animated templates delivered to Elements on a regular basis. There will also be a Photoshop.com ` Plus' membership offering 20 Gb [15,000 photos] of on-line photo storage, but that will require you paying an annual fee. The first year's 20 Gb subscription is included in Adobe's `Elements 7 Plus' [but not this standard version].
And all the old Element 6's tools are there as well. For editing you have a set of 'quickfix' options or you can load the full image editor for greater manual control: such as adjust sharpness, correct camera distortion, levels, hue and skin colour. Naturally you have standard tools like crop and adjust image size (pixels) as well. Plus there are step-through guides [guided edit] to help you get there. The software will also integrate with scanners twain interfaces if you are into scanning film, and the Fill Light [shadow/highlight] tool is pretty essential for bringing out detail in shadows from any slide/negative scan. Plus Elements can handle RAW camera images, although I use TIFF/jpg (Elements can save in any common image format).
System requirements are quite high: CD drive, 1Gb system RAM, XP or Vista, 2GHz processor, and a Direct-X 9 graphics card [and Adobe installers can reject systems that don't meet the minimum spec]. Elements 7 perhaps isn't a crucial upgrade from Elements 6 or even 5, but for new home users, or those with older versions, it's very powerful photo editing and image database software from the market leaders. The new 'Scene Cleaner' tool should have been the 'killer app' for those considering upgrading, but it is little more than Elements 6's old PhotoMerge Group application and it requires a series of photos where one has the background free to copy across [and it sometimes gets the exposure wrong making the added bit look rather obvious].
Adobe Elements 7 has only two real competitors at the price: Paint Shop Pro X2 and Serif PhotoPlus X2. Both these programs are also excellent and worthy of consideration, with PhotoPlus's strength being it's about as powerful but rather cheaper to buy and upgrade. Likewise Corel Paint Shop pro X2 occasionally offers a bit more than Elements [layer masks, and curves], is also cheaper and a tad easier to use, although it can be buggy [not Adobe's strong point on first version release either - so install those patches]. Professional users and some SLR enthusiasts will still head towards Adobe's semi-automated PhotoShop Darkroom 2.0 and the fantastically expensive Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended, although even at work we have Adobe Elements on a few imaging workstations for casual users, where the high cost of PhotoShop CS4 Extended simply isn't justified. That said experienced Photoshop CS4 users will rapidly find Elements 7 lacking in a few key features they are used to.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 is also available to buy as a cheaper double pack with the new Adobe Premiere Elements 7 video editing software, which should be even better value than this upgrade. Plus this double pack qualifies for a large educational discount for non-commercial use if you, or a child in the house, are in full time education [from primary school to college]. Similar large educational discounts apply to much of Adobes software. Those buying for College/School department use will save even more.
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List Price: £76.38
Our Price: £57.47
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By
Avanquest Software
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List Price: £39.99
Our Price: £19.56
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By
TSO
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List Price: £19.56
Our Price: £9.50
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By
Adobe Systems Inc.
- Produkt Version: 7.0
- Sprache: E
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List Price: £116.32
Our Price: £74.97
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By
Focus Multimedia Ltd
"The UK's BEST SELLING Driving Test Software* Essential training software to help you pass first time "The best and most comprehensive learner driver product on the market." Approved Driving Instructor News NEW THEORY TEST Contains the complete NEW OFFICIAL DSA Theory Test question bank for all tests taken from the 1st September 2008 onwards.
For learner car drivers, motorcyclists and ADIs in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Sit unlimited mock tests under realistic exam conditions.
Detailed progress monitor to see if you're ready for the real...
Perfect, 2008-10-15
As my daughter is the one who's learning to drive, I thought it made more sense for her to write this review, so here it is...
The DVD is really easy to use and provides a lot of useful tools.
One thing I particularly noticed which I'm sure wasn't on the previous version was the help with the practical test too. This is particularly beneficial for me as I'm not able to do driving lessons now but it's helping to prepare me for the kind of things I will be learning about and the final test also - I'm sure this section will become even more relevant in the run up to the practical test.
Back to theory - the tests have to be the best part in my opinion. It's so easy to go through them again and again and are a useful learning tool; it helps me affirm what I know, what I kind of understand, and what I'm just guessing about so that I can actually have an aim with my studying of the highway code rather than trying to learn it in one go.
I have always been daunted by the highway code, but now I combine the tests with the code to break it down into more manageable pieces. I'm learning much quicker too!
Also the hazard perception test is good; I'm not always sure what a hazard is and sometimes think a post box is but the huge lorry approaching isn't. So, this part is of particular help because it teaches me about recognising hazards when driving (which I would like to be able to do!). However it would be a bonus (for me, at least) if there could be two possibilities with the hazard perception test - the straightforward test, and then a more learning-as-you-go option, so for example if I signal a hazard when there isn't necessarily one, a little box could appear saying, "This isn't necessarily a hazard", or if it is then, "Yes, that's a hazard". I find it easier to relate if I get this kind of feedback during the test rather than at the end, and then I would be able to prepare myself more so that when I start practising for the test I could turn off this feature and do it without instant feedback. If this already exists, please tell me!
Overall I would highly recommend using the DVD for people learning to drive, and I hear it's good for those recapping too. It's easier to manage than the printed highway code in my opinion, not daunting, easy to use and I feel one can learn a lot faster with this interactive style as opposed to reading it all in black and white.
It's also preparation for the real thing not just in learning and doing practice tests but in that it is electronic, just as is the exam (to my knowledge), which means you become comfortable with that format and can recall information quickly in that setting, as opposed to trying to translate pages and pages of knowledge.
All in all, highly recommended.
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List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £3.99
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By
Adobe Systems Inc.
Easily tell great stories with your photos. Powerful yet easy-to-use Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6 software helps you make your photos look their best with step-by-step editing assistance and amazing compositing capabilities. Share your stories in imagin -
Adobe's best value application, 2008-11-22
With most of the applications produced by Adobe requiring a small mortgage to purchase, it makes a change to see a program that represents good value for money. For less cost than many stand alone raw file converters you have a program that can import raw files using the same plugin that is produced for their full Photoshop application. On top of that you are able to do some surprisingly complicated image manipulation, including full lens distortion correction and white balance control. For the more graphic inspired amongst us it carries a wide range of adobe effects and brushes. For the less technically minded you can switch to quick or guided mode. The layout is good, and keeping the effect palettes on the far right of the interface works well on the newer wide screen monitors. It some ways the feature set may seem a strange mixture, but you have to remember that this is not a program built from the ground up, it is really a version of Photoshop with selected features removed. A bit like a budget Ferrari with cheaper seats, fittings, and fewer gears. Some fairly high end features are included whilst other, more basic features, have been stripped out. For instance, there is no basic colour balance control, (only a variations control) yet channel levels and hue and saturation controls are the same as found in the full Photoshop. On the up side, the basic engine is retained, it still has lots of power, and a quick search of the web will reveal plenty of people writing freeware plugins to fill the gaps.
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List Price: £78.02
Our Price: £34.73
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By
Avanquest Software
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List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £6.73
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By
Avanquest Software
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List Price: £59.99
Our Price: £35.97
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By
Nero
Still the best in my opinion, 2008-11-11
This is a first class product! We have been using Nero for quite some time in our household now. Nero 7 and Nero 8 were worth every penny and Nero 9 has proved to be even better. There are loads of cool features such as BackitUp 4 - wich is really useful and easy to use...better safe than sorry! The TV feature is also really great to use and I agree with another review I read on here that being able to cut out the adverts is always a bonus!
Having read some of the reviews, I am slightly confused why people have found it difficult or have experienced problems. I can only speak as I find and I can honestly say that I found it very easy to install and use - and I'm certainly no computer whizz-kid! It's a great product packed with too many features to list here and in my opinion is worth a close look. I read once that Nero are renowned for burning software. I agree this is still a major strongpoint of Nero 9, but it is also much more than that. Check it out!
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List Price: £59.99
Our Price: £35.47
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