Ever thought your photos and movies could do with some special effects? Fancy yourself as a Spielberg? What about all those holiday snaps, surely you could make them more interesting. Photo editing can seem a daunting and sometimes futile business. And creating movies is another prospect altogether. However, MAGIX appear to be offering a program to take the fear out of editing that offers quick and easy results with spectacular effects. In a few clicks you can create effects that you will have seen on many television programmes.

To get started just install the software onto your PC and try out some of the presaved features. There is a large viewing area on the left of the screen and to the right are your folders and files. First of all you need to make sure you have chosen widescreen or normal video though; otherwise all your time and work will be wasted. You can upload music into your presentation, cue intro and outro themes, add cinema curtains opening and closing, then play with the myriad effects available. These include fade ins and outs, pixellation, zooming, tracking in from left or right, tracking out, the whole screen folding up, swirls... too many to mention to be honest.

Once you've mastered all this you can go to the next level of editing which involves animating your photographs, giving your grandparents hilarious moustaches, if they don't have them already, or putting glasses on your dog. You can also add speech bubbles or pixellate faces, as if they were on a news report. Once your happy burn your presentation, slideshow or home movie onto a CD or DVD, or show your slideshows as videos in Flash format or even in high resolution HD. Even better, you can share them with your friends using an online MAGIX album. MAGIX is a substantial and, most importantly, accessible editing package.