Don't be fooled by PhotoImpact 7.0's low price. This photo editor actually gives you more than your money's worth.
It lets you massage digital images, construct components for Web pages, and generate sophisticated blends of bitmap and vector art, but it costs less than a month's worth of cappuccinos.
It's no Photoshop--PhotoImpact lacks high-end collaborative tools--but at one-sixth the cost, who cares? And though we also like the similarly priced Paint Shop Pro, PhotoImpact is the best deal on the market.
Unlike self-guided, no-smarts-needed software such as Microsoft's Picture It Publishing Platinum 2002, PhotoImpact drops you into the deep end of the digital pool and expects you to swim. It lacks the kind of step-by-step tools and soup-to-nuts templates that programs such as Picture It hand to rookies.
Unfortunately, even though this app is not intended for beginners, its menus are still too cluttered with commands, and it spawns way too many free-floating tool palettes.
Even experienced users will need to take time to remember what's where and to select the correct commands.
However, once you get comfortable with PhotoImpact's interface (it took us several days), it'll be smooth sailing. As with most design tools, the work space--the area where you work on your photo or illustration--occupies most of the display.
Toolbars (which hold frequently used tools such as brushes, erasers, retouchers, and croppers) flank the work space at the top and on the left, while the tool palettes (called panels) roll up with a double-click, leaving the work space uncluttered.
By turns, PhotoImpact functions as a digital photo editor, a Web graphics designer, and a bitmap and object-based drawing tool, covering the bases for all but the most demanding designers.
And, although it's not a hand-holding program like Picture It, PhotoImpact does include a post-processing wizard (one of the few wizards PhotoImpact packs) that walks you through all kinds of photo fix-it features, from removing red-eye to adjusting colour to cropping. To apply scores of effects, from halo lighting to fun-house mirror distortions, just click the appropriate thumbnails in the EasyPalette panel.
Two new 7.0 tools really take the cake. The Batch Manager lets you apply the same effects or use the same tool on multiple images simultaneously, saving tons of time when you want to process, say, a series of images by automatically cropping each one. The other tool, Print Multiple, offers a wealth of print options that make it easy to put several shots on one sheet of expensive photo paper.
And, like other top-notch image editors, Photo Impact integrates with a free photo-sharing/storage site. iMira lets you save up to 20MB of pictures, edit them online, and organise them into albums. You can upload pics directly from within PhotoImpact using the File/Export command or drag and drop files onto the new icon the program puts on the desktop.
PhotoImpact's Web graphics creation tools set it apart from other image editors, such as Paint Shop Pro or even Photoshop. These tools make it a breeze to build buttons, bullets, and banners. Want to slash the download time of your Web site? No problem: PhotoImpact's Image Optimizer compresses GIF, JPEG, and PNG image files and shows before-and-after results of your compression choices.
The equally handy Background Designer, with 22 groups of textures, lets you create page backgrounds in seconds. Plus, the GIF Animator 5.0 utility makes short work of assembling small animated images, and the new Image Map tool lets you define clickable hot spots in images as you finesse them in PhotoImpact's work space. Our pick of the litter? The new Slice Tool, which slices and dices an image into separate pieces, each of which you can quickly turn into a clickable link.
PhotoImpact's slick integration of both bitmap (raster) and vector (object) tools means that, as in Paint Shop Pro, you can switch from airbrushing pictures to placing a predefined geometric shape without skipping a beat. PhotoImpact concentrates on putting tons of image-making tools in your hands. Z-Merge is the coolest one in the set; it lets even the graphically challenged meld multiple objects into 3D composites.
We're not quite as keen on PhotoImpact when it comes to drawing from scratch. This is no Photoshop and shouldn't be considered a replacement for the AU$1500 program if you're a professional designer. Other caveats abound, too: PhotoImpact won't work on Macs--a crucial flaw, since many professional graphic artists lean on Apple.
Nor does PhotoImpact sport Photoshop's collaborative workgroup features.
Ulead's online tech support sports a blend of FAQs; nifty online tutorials; and an extensive, searchable database of problems and solutions. We had no problem finding answers to many of our questions here, but if you're not so lucky, you can ask for help via e-mail.
PhotoImpact is a real deal. For AU$259, you get an all-in-one graphics package suitable for both amateur artists and cash-strapped professionals. Professional designers and Mac types should still fork over the big bucks for Photoshop, but the rest of us will find everything we need, and then some, in PhotoImpact.
| Product: | PhotoImpact 7.0 |
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| Price: | AU$259 |
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| Vendor: | Ulead |
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| Phone: | 1800 657 601 |
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| Interoperability: |  Windows 98, NT 4.0, 2000, ME, XP. |
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| Futureproofing: |  Quality performance at a low price. |
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| ROI: |  At such a low price, you are guaranteed to get real bang for your buck. |
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| Service: |  Phone: 1300 302 306, e-mail techsupport@lakovision.com.au |
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