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Corel Paint Shop ProPhoto X2

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:42:17 +0000

You wait ages for upgrades to beginner friendly photo-editing suites, then two come along at once. Paint Shop Pro from Corel also sports a smart grey interface and more photographer-friendly tools. The new software , which we’ll call Photo X2 for convenience, is a spookily similar proposition to the latest Elements, with a strong emphasis on managing and storing shots-there are only so many image tweaks that the target market will want to make, after all. So be careful when you install the software, as it almost immediately wants to roll up its sleeves and start sorting out your photos.

As with Elements, there’s a lot of hand holding and one-click photo fixes, with the new Express Lab mode coming in handy for simple tweaks to lots of shots. Despite gimmicks like the new Thinify tool, Photo X2 is certainly not dumbed down, and comes with a surprisingly effective HDR Photo Merge feature for getting the best high –dynamic-range effects from a couple of shots. This saves times when working with landscapes, though don’t overdo it or the final image can look overcooked.

There’s a bewildering array of Layer Styles too. As well as conventional Layer Editing, these enable you to add effects to images. It all works, but still feels clunky compared with working with layers in Elements 6. We were more then with the photography-centric tools, such as the efficient noise remover and good range of watermark creation tools.

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:07:57 +0000

Seven years have passed since Photoshop Elements 1, and while the latest version seems to be about evolution rather than revolution, the software shows no sign of running out of steam. The most obvious improvements to Elements concern the frontend , and the photo-sorting and sharing tools. Certainly, the all-new grey interface looks fantastic, and organizes the key components of the program under logical Create, Edit and Share tabs. A sub-tab of Edit called Guided walks you through potential fixes for a particular image, and it’s all very idiot –proof.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (Mac) [OLD VERSION]

Layer Groups 1.1

admin — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:32:05 +0000

Layer Groups 1.1 is a rather self-explanatory in inDesign CS3 plug in by DTP tools. Taking its lead from the very same feature in Photoshop, Layer Groups adds the ability of organizing layers into sets and ultimately making your InDesigns docs more manageable.

While you would expect the plug in to work within layers pallete in InDesign , it doesn’t. It works as its own palette, effectively replacing the native Layers palette and therefore asking you to change your workflow somewhat. However, it’s not a painful adjustment- the Layer Groups palette looks and feels just like InDesign’s own Layers palette.

There are really only two features to this plug –in. The first we’ve already explained and the second is to create printing or non-printing groups of layers. You can, of course, create non-printing layers natively in InDesign via the Layer palette’s options menu, so why is this beneficial? Well, being able to set an entire group as non-printing is handy if you have a number of annotation layers (for convenience , really), but other than that it’s not exactly essential.

For designers using loads of layers though, organizing them in a Photoshop-esque way is a very attractive proposition. The fact that layer order and hierarchy will remain intact when documents are opened in copies at InDesign without the Layer Groups plug –in makes it even better.

Drawplus X2

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:23:06 +0000

Serif has always been an alternative to the big –names, offering budget prices, and its illustration package DrawPlus has been tagging along behind it’s more popular rivals for more than ten years. But with a number of new additions, it’s now a more convincing choice than before.

As an overview, it offers all the usual line, path and fill tools you’d expect from a vector based paint program. But it also includes an impressive range of textured arty brushes with more than a passing resemblance to the paint tools available in Corel Painter. The paint examples in the tutorials are unimpressive , but in more capable hands it’s unexpectedly responsive. If you’re looking for a pen –based paint package and don’t feel like wrestling with the complexities of Painter, DrawPlus may well be up to the job.

Also included is a handy 3D extrusion tool, especially useful for blobbing out text into three dimensions, and a basic keyframe animation tool with tweening. Animations can be saved in Flash format, so you can put together simple banner ads and splashes without much effort. While DrawPlus has its limits, you can get a lot done with it, and it feels faster and simpler than waiting for the chunkier parts of CS3 to load and start.

Overall, you’ll like this if you’re starting out, on a very tight budget or want something simple but productive without the learning curve of Flash, Illustrator or Painter.

DrawPlus X2 Graphics Studio