Being a keen photographer I love messing around with pictures on my computer. In fact, sometimes I wish I didn't have to wait until I got home before I tinker around with them to make something creative. Hang on, what's that? I don't have to wait until I get home because Pocket Artist lets me edit graphics on the move? Now this I've got to see.

Sure enough, this software allows you to manipulate images on your Pocket PC, supporting all the major graphics formats, including JPG, PNG, GIG, BMP and PSD. Once you've installed the program using the Windows Installer and loaded an image the creative world is your oyster thanks to the bevy of tools on offer here.

Pocket Artist's user environment is fairly similar to the one you'll see in the popular desktop-based graphics packages, if slimmed down somewhat. There are only eight icons on the toolbar for stuff like drawing tools, shape selection, fill and stroke colour and brush style and size.

What's more, there are dozens more tools locked within the pop-up menu system accessible from the bottom of the interface. Here you can do things like apply filters to images, zoom in and out of the image, rotate and transform, and adjust colour/brightness etc. The fact that Pocket Artist also lets you work with layers demonstrates exactly how powerful this program is, and you have enough tools at your disposal to create some truly impressive imagery.

The problem lies in the fact that the tools aren't as easily accessible as they could be and because there are no floating palettes or extended toolbars like you'll find on the big screen graphics apps, you'll need to do a lot more hunting around for the features you need. Nevertheless, considering the size limitations of a mobile screen, the app does well to put as much as it does on display without looking cluttered.

Even if you're a high-end digital photographer or designer you'll be impressed by exactly how many powerful editing tools Pocket Artist contains.

Review by James Thornton