Customer Reviews

Art Explosion 600,000 Images [Old Version]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Let me get my dissatisfactions out of the way as overall I am very pleased with this collection.

One of my gripes is the choice of format for the graphics. The vector images are WMF files, the raster images are TIF files and the photographs are JPG. JPG is a good choice for the photographs, but WMF is not as universal as Nova development would like you to believe and TIF files are just not one of my favorite formats.

My other complaint is the supplied image browser, an Extensis product. Each disk has a nice catalog, in the form of a database, and the idea is you can use the browser to see the images you are looking for. The major shortcoming is that if you add images to a folder, there is no way to add this image to the database. I also just could not get used to using it it. I freely admit I did not spend much time with this tool. Instead, I use a shareware image browser, or the browser of my graphics program, to view the images in the folder without the benefit of the supplied database. I am much more at home with these tools.

The good news begins with a thick book containing a B&W thumbnail of each image. They are all cataloged and supply the location of what folder you will find the image in. Some people prefer to look through a book to preview the image and for them this is a major plus: Art Explosion is the only collection I found with this feature. While this may seem a like quaint anachronism to many people, I do find myself sometimes browsing this catalog just to see what's there.

What's there is an incredible collection of clipart, backgrounds, photos, cut out letters, buttons (icons) and fonts. The shear volume is overwhelming. The styles range from retro to early Americana to timeless. While some clips are ready to use as-is, other images beg to be modified, and that's what they're there for. There is even a collection of do-it-your-self parts to assemble your own screen being!

The quality of images ranges from very good to excellent. I was a little disappointed when I closely examined one of the TIF images and found what look like scan artifacts. There are too many images to preview all for this type of defect, but from what I've seen this is the exception as opposed to the rule. I can easily clean these artifacts, but they should not have been there to begin with. I was also surprised to find their definition of High Resolution is 300 DPI. While this is adequate, my personal standard for High Resolution is 600 DPI or better.

As a bonus, there is a collection of several hundred fonts and a photo-editing program. I did not install Kai's Photo Soap as I already have a program I use for that purpose. I will let someone else comment on Photo Soap. I am a fontaholic, so some of the included fonts were duplicates of fonts I already had. Overall the fonts represented a useful collection and there were some fonts I did not have, so these were a welcome addition to my personal selections.

This clipart collection is certainly not the least expensive, but I feel it is worth the price based on the volume of images, quality of the images and the printed catalog of images. I found some duplication of the bonus tools with programs I already own and use, but I have no gripe with their inclusion in the package. I was looking at buying clipart, not more programs. For that, I think this package represents a fair value. If I could rate this frationally, I'd give it a 3.75 It's way better than average, but a little short of outstanding and well short of excellent. You won't go wrong with this package as a starter collection.

3/19/2004
I found two of the images in the collection were corrupt and would not display properly. I contacted NovaSoft via e-mail and had a reply within 24 hrs. They sent me two replacement CDs. When I checked the images om the replacement CD, they too were corrupt. I called tech support and within a matter of minutes, I was e-mailed replacement images in a different format. The images that were bad were WMF clipart. The clips e-mailed were in EPS format. The new EPS images were perfect. According to the tech I spoke with, that's the difference between the Mac and Windows versions: Mac packages use EPS instead of WMF files, and the catalog program is Mac specific.

Add another half point to my rating of this product for excellent tech support. My overall rating is now boosted to 4.25. NovaDevelopment did correct the problem, without any aggravation, but the error should not have been there in the first place. I stand by my original Four Star rating: Very good collection and worth the price.

I bought ClickArt 750,000 because it had more images for less money - only to find that there were fewer than 200,000 images in the box and I'd have to download the rest! Very aggravating. Art Explosion 600,000, in contrast, is an honest clip art product. All 600,000 images are in the box. It's a much better option. And the graphics are of very high quality.

It contains everything from photos of ballet, landscape and teddy bears to funny clip art and fonts. Also it has a lot of images that can be used as frames, borders and other design images to be used for webdesign. In addition it doesn't have those annoying numbers as titles of images, but has the name of the image. Makes it a lot easier to locate the images you're looking for! The images are also sorted alphabetically which makes it very easy to browse to both the CD's and catalog!
The catalog shows all of the clip art images, and also which catagories of photos that can be found on the 29 CD's. And it is very easy to locate an image you like in the catalog on the right CD.
If you're looking for photos and also clip art to use in espessially webdesign, then this is really worth it!

This is a great product from the Nova Development. It has 55% Vector ClipArt and 80% Colour Images. You dont download the images or have to have a membership, Just pick the image you want and use it, Simple as that. When i first brought this i thought it wouldnt be that good because of the looks of the box but when i actually starting using the images i could'nt stop. It has everything that you can think of, Web Graphics, Photos, Dividers etc. great quality! I would recommend this to anyone!

Boy, I really wanted to like this-especially after seeing it got 5 stars by other reviewers. However, I ended up returning it. It is an enormous collection and I have no complaint about the quality. The problem is the search engine. THERE ISN'T ONE.!! Finding an image is a labor of Hercules. Even the book they supply containing most of the images (the photo images are not included) is poorly conceived. The images are small, black&white and poor quality - some so dark and grainy that I couldn't make them out even using a magnifier.
I was looking forward to using this impressive set, but it isn't worth the trouble. You just can't find your images. It isn't searchable.

I've been using this collection for several years now, and may need to buy another one, I think I've worn out the first one! The Portfolio Browser that comes with it is a great tool for browsing the thumbnail catalogs, and the printed volume is also a handy item to have around. This is the best clip art collection I own; the large amount of graphics, both vector & raster, means I can always find what I need for the task at hand. The photo collection is impressive, and the web graphics & animation section is great (although a few more in this area wouldn't hurt.) You definitely get your money's worth with this collection.

I've been using clip art to illustrate a dental newsletter for years. I've used Corel, Microsoft clipart, ClipTures by Dream Maker, Art Explosion 125,000 and even online based clip art websites. What is important is that the software has quality images and comes with a BOOK OF SAMPLE IMAGES with an index. Art Explosion 600,000 has both. Most other packages (including Art Explosion 200,000) DON'T include a book of images.

Aronbergvlad is right; there is no real search engine. Don't bother installing the "Art Explosion Installer", or their catalogue browser. The browser only searches the images on the CD that is in the drive. Not the other 28 CDs. It's useless.

However the book of images is just fine for finding images. Just look up your subject the index, find a nice image in the book, pop in the corresponding CD, set Windows Explorer to Thumbnails view and scroll until you see one you like.

Using clip art is not for beginners. It takes practice, but if you're ready, Art Explosion 600,000 is the BEST there is.

If you do a lot of graphic art and design and need an excellent variety of drawing-style clip art, cartoons, professional images, as well as real hi-resolution photography.... this is the way to go!

Comes with a giant book in categories so you see what you're looking at in advance. Want a picture of a jukebox? Look in the index. There you go. Jukebox. A ton of choices too.

I rely on this... don't know what I'd do without it.

I agree with most of the other reviewers; this package is inexpensive for all you get, and the quality of the images is good. I'm using it with Windows XP Professional and have had NO problems with the interface between the operating system and the software. It installed quicky and easily.

I did have a problem with one of the disks originally, but Nova came through with great customer service. Now I'm a customer for life.

I bought this software as a companion for Scrapbook Factory Deluxe 2.0. The book of images is great. Unlike the previous reviewer, I had no problem seeing the images (that is, they are not too small and grainy). The only problem with the book is that it is very HEAVY! If you can think of an object, Art Explosion 600,000 not only has it included...it probably has at least 10 different variations! I do not believe it is a labor of Hercules to find the image your searching for. The book tells you the category, find the category on the list of CD's, and then the images are in alphabetical order on the CD (as shown in the book). Not bad at all! The only problem is deciding which image to use!