Microsoft updates photo-editing

Microsoft today rolled out the latest version of its photo-editing software product, adding it to the company's Graphics Studio line of publishing and imaging products.

Priced at $59.95, Microsoft Graphics Studio Picture It 99 is targeted at home and small business users, giving them the ability to digitally manipulate photos and email them, with sound and music, as well as create personalized image-enhanced simple applications like calendars, or create greetings cards.

The new product includes The Quick Touchup 60-second photo-lab application that allows users to correct tint, crop, rotate, and fix red-eye, while the Clone Brush can duplicate an image in a photo or do the opposite.

The new product also includes a Touchup Painting application that allows users to paint brightness, contrast, tint, color, and transparency onto a single object or area of the photo. Users can also restore images to their original glory by applying the Old to New feature in the new product.

The imaging product comes with two CDs with about 1,000 images and templates for users to apply to their own projects. And the Save for the Web Wizard gives users the ability to develop a picture or project for the Web.

Users can also use the product to develop more traditional images by loading images onto Kodak PhotoNet or Fujifilm.Net; they would then receive a standard photographic print.

As part of Microsoft's Graphics Studio line, Picture It 99 joins the ranks of Graphics Studio Greetings 99, Graphics Studio Home Publishing 99, Graphics Studio Home Publishing Suite 99, Publisher 98, and Publisher 98 Deluxe.

Picture It 99 ships this month, and users can get more information about the product at its Web site.