"A photo never lies" they say, but it simply isn't true.

The latest digital image technology allows even a beginner to distort and twist images in a way photographers of years gone by could only dream about.

You can take a scanned image or a digital photograph and clean up any imperfections before e-mailing it to a client.

Or remove all traces of red-eye from the family photo album.

Then you can invisibly mend a torn 50-year-old photo of the grandparents' wedding day and enlarge it in time for their golden wedding celebrations.

The more advanced stuff is almost unbelievable and is still out of the reach of amateurs.

Imagine taking a two-dimensional (flat) photograph of a celebrity and turning it into an animated 3D avatar that can be manipulated to become a 'virtual' person.

See our website of the week on for a good example.

Imaging software should make it easy to import pictures from digital cameras, scanners or downloaded pictures from the internet.

The interface should be intuitive and the software should have wizards that guide the user through basic tasks such as red-eye removal or creating greeting cards.

Good imaging software should also provide basic tools to correct common problems in images.

It should change brightness and contrast, sharpen and soften, colour correct, change colours, crop and rotate images or remove unwanted details.

The software should also enable you to add text, create photomontages and offer special effects.

The more file formats the software can read and save, the more pictures you can work with.

At the minimum, today's software should support the following file formats: BMP, FlashPix, GIF, JPG, PCX and TIFF.

Today's imaging software should all be able to save images in the standard web formats GIF and JPG.

The better editing packages let you optimise images for the web by reducing the number of colours.

This gives a smaller file size, which in turn makes it faster to download.

Some software can even create HTML pages that can be uploaded to form part of a website.

Whatever your needs, look for an imaging software package that is:

easy to use
offers a good selection of tools
can open and save a wide range of file formats.

There are a number of top software packages that fit the bill.

Adobe Photoshop 5.5 is industry-standard software that most professional graphic designers regard as indispensable.

It offers a comprehensive range of tools, filters and functionality for the professional user.

Canvas 7 is a comprehensive image editing suite which offers vector drawing, photoediting, web design, internet publishing, page layout and typography, illustration and special 'sprite' effects.

Paint Shop Pro 8 is an image-editing tool that offers robust painting and drawing tools and support for more than 40 image formats.

Features include built-in special effects filters, RGB colour separation, masking options, CMYK separation, flexible painting and retouching brushes and adjustable cropping and selection tools.

MGI Photosuite III includes step-by-step guides that allow users to edit, enhance, organise, present, share and print photographs.

Seamless web integration connects users to a host of online imaging activities.

Users can share photos, creations and slide shows through e-mail, utilise online photo-finishing services and even automatically upload photos to a special online photo-sharing website.

Adobe Photoshop 5.5: www.adobe.com Canvas 7: www.deneba.com Paint Shop Pro 8: www.digitalworkshop.co.uk MGI Photosuite III: www.mgisoft.com