ULEAD PHOTOIMPACT 10 is a terrific basic image editor.With version 10, Ulead has added a broad range of handy new features, making this program a steal at $89.99.

For starters, Ulead has added photo frames, 17 new effects filters (Pen and Ink, Cartoon, and Engraving, to name a few), and a new touch-up tool for subtly removing image defects. Three new selection tools make it easier to work with specific areas of an image: Smart Lasso, which draws a selection border around complex objects; Extract Object, which isolates an image element from a background; and Match Background Color, for seamlessly merging an extracted element back into the image. Version 10’s interface is totally configurable, with dockable toolbars, buttons, and panels that can be dragged and dropped around the screen.

Ulead has retained the unusual (and clever) visual thumbnails for applying effects as well. PhotoImpact is equally at home with bitmap, vector, and text objects, providing a full range of tools for assembling surprisingly complex documents.

Digital-camera support is beefed up with a wizard for downloading images, a Browse manager to view EXIF information, and an updated High Dynamic Range feature. The High Dynamic Range tool combines multiple exposures into a single image to brighten dark areas and darken lights in high-contrast photos; it now compensates for movement between the bracketed original shots.

Even if there were nothing else in the box, PhotoImpact alone would be a bargain, but Ulead bundles extras like PhotoImpact Album, a decent image manager that’s beginning to show its age, and Cool 360, a wizard-driven app that creates panoramas from a set of photos.