Entered CNET Catalog: 07/21/2001
SKU: E26-00011
Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Manufacturer description
Easily improve your photos and share them with friends and family through prints, e-mail, and the Web with Picture It! With a new Web-styled start-up screen, automated correction tools, and step-by-step guided projects, it's easy for both novice and advanced users to complete difficult editing tasks.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 10/10/2001
Quick start
After a smooth if somewhat lengthy installation, the program starts with a snazzy welcome screen. To begin a project, select from a variety of templates, such as calendars, business cards, stickers, brochures, albums, or envelopes. Or just open and edit a digital image by accessing files from your hard drive or acquiring new images from scanners, a camera, or your MSN Photos online photo album. If you're not sure how to get started, visit the help menu and launch one of several well-designed animated sequences that illustrate how to use various features. In fact, all the program's context-sensitive help features are superb and usually available when you need them.
Once you have chosen the image you plan to work on, Picture It brings you to the main work space. Thumbnails on the right side of the screen let you access different layers of your project. Below the main window, you'll find thumbnails of the images you've worked on recently, along with a slide bar to let you adjust the image size of your current project. On the left sits the tool panel, which offers either a clickable list of options (for tweaking, say, size, color, or depth) or step-by-step instructions on how to use each instrument. Unfortunately, Picture It sometimes uses that same side panel to exhibit a number of promotional special offers, which simply clutter the work space and are, frankly, quite annoying.
Oodles of tools
Picture It boasts a remarkable number of editing tools. Like Photo Express and PhotoImpression, Picture It makes it easy to adjust brightness, tint, and size and to correct red-eye--all you do is choose the appropriate tool and click the image. If you wish, you can add several artistic special effects, which Microsoft calls Illusions. These effects can re-create your photo as a charcoal or pencil sketch. Other special effects let you distort the image by pulling it out of shape, paint over or fill in areas with a variety of colors and brush strokes, or add a 3D look. Picture It also lets you add virtual picture frames, mattes, and backgrounds, or you can choose from a large number of categorized clip art and templates that include animals, clothing, and cartoons. When you're finished, organize your images in Picture It's gallery--categorize them, name them, and add keywords.
Unlike Photo Express and PhotoImpression, Picture It includes tools to remove scratches and dust and restore the focus and contrast of old photographs. We worked on a damaged black-and-white photo and were able to sharpen it significantly. However, oddly enough, the cloning tool, which lets you make exact copies of any portion of your image, did a better job fixing scratches than did Picture It's dedicated Remove Scratch tool.
Share it in on the Web
Once you've completed your project, Picture It lets you export it in several different formats. You can save an image in a traditional format, such as JPEG or BMP. Or, like the other two packages we reviewed, Picture It offers a free online service, MSN Photos, that lets you save up to 30MB worth of images into your own Web album. You can also order Fuji prints of your photos starting at 49 cents per 4x6-inch print from the site, a service that is not available from either Ulead or ArcSoft.
Click the Tech Support button in the "About Microsoft Picture It" menu selection to access copious help options, including numerous FAQs, Q&As, and e-mail support. For live help, Microsoft offers free phone service on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 5 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (PT), longer hours than those offered by its competitors. For corporate users who need after-hours help, Microsoft Professional Support is available 24/7 for $245 per incident.
Bigger and better
Microsoft has done itself proud in its latest version of Picture It. If you ignore its annoying ads, you'll find Picture It a comprehensive and useful product for tweaking, organizing, and publishing your photography collections.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61
User Rating: 
10/10
Using it for years. Very user friendly.
Pros: Ease of use. Photo editing features are excellent.
Cons: I find it difficult to print single photos directly from this program. I usually have to do the editing here and save it to print from HP Photosmart program.
Updated on Apr 29, 2009lost disc 3...can anyone help?
User Rating: 10/10
used for years
Pros: edit pictures, make all of our labels, Christmas cards, business cards, etc.
Cons: I have not had any complaints with this product.
User Rating: 10/10
great product
Pros: easy to use
Cons: It is not available for Vista or my 64 bit OS
User Rating: 
1/10
When is this programme going to work with VISTA????
Pros: I have loved this programme for YEARS!!!
Cons: Imagine my unhappy surprise when I bought a new computer to find it would not work with VISTA
You create an operating system for people who buy new computers at hefty prices only to find that even YOUR!!!! Programmes do not work on it. I am very unhappy about not being able to have my Picture It Publishing on my new computer. I am very disappointed in Microsoft! Bill Gates leaves and the new people can't seem to think at all! Don't get Vista people!!!!
User Rating: 
9/10
Superb! The best that I've found on the market!
Pros: Easy to use and magnificant productions when completed that get rave reviews from others
Cons: runtime error message can't resolve at times; help commands don't always resolve the problem
User Rating: 
4/10
Major Known Functional Issues
Pros: MS knows of several known functional issues that are not going to be fixed - things that are advertised to work that don't - cards showing up with GREEN boxes with no way to get the actual image up. MS has gone so far as to offer full refunds of the sof
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User Rating: 
6/10
Good just outweighs bad
Pros: It's best at tweaking photos, doing montages, e-mail cards, and some other simple design projects. Good for dowloading digital camera photos and editing. I've had Pic 2002 for well over a year and I'd never noticed the sidebar ads until CNET's review poi
Cons: Don't program it to be your default photo opener, it takes far too long to load. Takes up a lot of space on hard drive. Does not remember previous folder used, you have to trip through all your folder levels every time. Won't open in anything else but M
User Rating: 1/10
program not responding
Pros: it's okay, nothing to great, when you caqn get it to actualy to work
Cons: ug. i wont go there.
User Rating: 
7/10
I think this is a wonderful product for the person who is not an experience photo person.
Pros: I have been having such fun with adding photos and art to calendars for the family.
Cons: I probably don't know how to use but seems that if I don't like a picture from gallery, when i cut it and try to go back to same category, Ihave to start all over.
User Rating: 4/10
Much worse than my earlier version
Pros: This product has many good features
Cons: Many of the good features are more cumbersome than my earlier version. When I want to crop a picture, I have to select ?whole picture?, otherwise I only crop the image (the older version only cropped the whole picture, which is what I always want to do).
User Rating: 
3/10
Frequent crashes
Pros: Nice features. Nice integration of basic picture editing and publishing.
Cons: Bugs, bugs, bugs. Frequently couldn't get saved files to load without crashing the computer. It is truly gut-wrenching to create exactly what you want, print it, save it, and then find that you can't open it.
User Rating: 6/10
Download Update to fix the bugs
Pros: This software works well after you download the update available at http://www.microsoft.com/down loads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0f b68178-d6bd-41bd-9f00-f44ac7ca 9e28&DisplayLang=en
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User Rating: 4/10
Great features don't offset bugs
Pros: Ease of use, great templates, excellent mail merge concept.
Cons: Doesn't work. All throughout the program you find features that either don't work, or crash the computer. Mail merge is easy to set up, then you print your results and only the first page prints. The following pages are formatted incorrectly or don't p
User Rating: 
8/10
The best that I've used
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User Rating: 3/10
It freezes up too much!
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User Rating: 10/10
1 WORD AWESOME
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User Rating: 6/10
Easy to learn
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User Rating: 3/10
Spend more $ on a better product
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User Rating: 3/10
rather poor support from M/S on OEM programs
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User Rating: 3/10
"It will never work"
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User Rating: 6/10
crashes too often
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User Rating: 
5/10
What,s up?
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User Rating: 7/10
loaded with features
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User Rating: 7/10
Error messages and will not print
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User Rating: 5/10
turn off text scripting on norton virus protection
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User Rating: 
2/10
Very Unstable!!
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User Rating: 8/10
GREAT PRODUCT!
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User Rating: 6/10
Crashes EVERY time
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User Rating: 8/10
It definetly works for me
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User Rating: 10/10
it works well
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User Rating: 1/10
Can't Even Install it on Win98
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User Rating: 6/10
Unstable and slow
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User Rating: 7/10
Takes forever to use the save as feature
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User Rating: 10/10
MicroSoft at their best.
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User Rating: 2/10
there are alot of problems
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User Rating: 8/10
The best of all I've tried!
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User Rating: 8/10
Pretty simple to use
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User Rating: 6/10
Unstable pre-beta junk.
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User Rating: 5/10
More Crashes than a blind man in a demolition derby
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User Rating: 4/10
Stick w/Picture It 2000
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User Rating: 4/10
Crashes System Frequently
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User Rating: 3/10
Another bloated, sluggish MS product
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User Rating: 5/10
Keep away if you value sanity
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User Rating: 6/10
Not if you are doing digital images!!
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User Rating: 10/10
Great Photo Program
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User Rating: 6/10
Seems good to me
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User Rating: 2/10
counter intuitive interface
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User Rating: 6/10
Freezes up very frequently.
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User Rating: 10/10
Awesome once you pass the learning curve!
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User Rating: 3/10
What a hunk of junk!!!
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User Rating: 10/10
The BEST for Photo Touchups
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User Rating: 1/10
BLOWS ADOBE AWAY FOR THE PRICE
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User Rating: 6/10
Incomplete Software
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User Rating: 8/10
Finally, something that works!
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User Rating: 4/10
Won't run even on the best system!
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User Rating: 5/10
Incomplete program!!!!!
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User Rating: 4/10
Not for the Novice . . . Unless you like PAIN
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User Rating: 2/10
I wouldn't load this - See Comments
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User Rating: 5/10
Can't agree with the Editor's choice
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User Rating: 9/10
For non-pro's, The BEST!
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User Rating: 8/10
Best Editing Program Ever!!!
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