Customer Reviews

CorelDraw Graphics Suite 12 Upgrade

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have been a user of CorelDRAW for more than 10 years and have often used many other graphics products including the so-called industry leader Adobe products. After using CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 I believe I can finally rid myself of all these other products and stick solely to this suite. All the new features are incredibly useful and time-saving. All the applications work well with one another, and I've pushed it as hard as I can with some huge files, and it hasn't had any problems at all. This truely is an incredible release... thanks Corel!!!

PS. If you don't believe me, download the trial from Corel's website and try it for yourself (www.corel.com)

Jim

I am an amature photographer and painter. And I love using photoshop too. But I can't afford photoshop. Adobe makes great products but they are overpriced. This is why I got Corel Graphics Suite. It supports all the plug-in's for photoshop, does pretty much everything photoshop and illustrator can and all for a cheaper price. If you are just starting out with computer graphics this is a good alternative to Adobe. Or if you are a student with little or no money and need a legit image suite this is the way to go.

I am upgrading from version 10, and version 10 already has a way to make your default units in Photopaint Pixels.

There is also one user that has reviewed this three times with a bad review. C'mon, now.

Just press Ctrl-J and change the default units to pixels. Simple.

One of the greatest things about CorelDraw is the active help you can get from expert users at http://www.egroups.com/community/cdug

If you had posted this question there, we would have shown you how to do this 3 years ago.

I have used Coreldraw for almost 6 years everyday in my job from version 9 thru 12. I was so comfortable with Coreldraw 9 and it was very easy to learn. It was an amazing program for screenprint and embroidery purposes. I upgraded to 11 and they changed all the icons on the toolbars, alienating all the Corel 9 users, but the basics of the program where still there. This is a minor point as its still a great program. Luckily Corel 12 has the same toolbar look as 11 so I'm now used to it. Corel 12 is a much more stable program than 11 and I have yet had a problem with it crashing.

Corel have added some nice features, including the smart drawing tool. You can draw a rough shape and the program will convert it a clean square or circle. This can save alot of time if you want to lay things out quickly. You can also take a clean straight line object and easily give it a jagged edge with the move of the mouse.

The Corel program in general is easier to use than Illustrator as its more down to earth, and alot more direct to achieve the same effects.
The options to customise the program are mindblowing, as you can set all your own shortcuts, add and remove certain tools and even re-design the look of the icons if you wish. There is also a setting to make Corel look like the Illustrator workspace so that anyone stepping over from Adobe will not feel out of place.

Corel have always had easier print options than Adobe. The seperation and prepress tabs are easy to follow and change. Luckily this hasn't changed since previous versions.

It also has a wide range of file supports, including EPS, JPEG, Adobe Illustrator and DXF. The other programs that come in the suite easily compete with the Adobe CS suite. Especially Corel Trace, which does an excellent job of tracing bitmap images to Vector.

Unfortunately I have come to realise that Corel 12 has lost certain small features that all the previous version have kept. When you use a program everyday you get used to shortcuts and methods of designing. But now Corel 12 makes you go the long way round. Small things like not being able to edit an object if its grouped to others, and not being able to make simple changes to nodes without accessing it with the shape tool.

These are all minor things that otherwise make for a great design program for the fraction of the price of Adobe CS. I highly recommend it.

I have been a CorelDraw user since version 3, and have owned every version except 6, and even beta tested a couple.
Draw12 is terrific. I use it on a daily basis for everything from technical illustration, to 4-color advertising, to landscape design, and beyond. This version is very stable. The snapping options alone are worth the price of admission. I output prepress PDF files with no problem.
PhotoPaint is also a major player. Somebody complained that an object rotation of less than 90 degrees caused major blurring of the object. I found some blurring to occur, but running the unsharp mask clears it up nicely.
All in all, terrific bang for the buck.

I have been a diehard CorelDraw an Photopaint fan since version 5.0 and have been designing with Corel for the last 10 years. I am currently working on my degree in Graphic Design and I have a certificate in desktop publishing. I have had a chance to compare Corel against the Industry Standard software applications that are taught at my school. In my opinion, Corel applications are light years ahead of the competition. Their products are intuitive easy to learn and use. You get all the funtionality of Illustrator and Photoshop with CorelDraw and Photopaint plus loads of extras including built-in multi-page layout capability without spending an extra $500-$1000+ on Quark or InDesign (you will be amazed--it really works great!) A real nifty feature is that I can open, edit, and save Illustrator, Photoshop and Adobe PDF files in CorelDraw or Photopaint--I do this quite frequently when my Illustrator of Photoshop homework assignments give me fits. Corel even does a better job a making PDF files than the Adobe Distiller. Don't let your service providers debunk Corel. Chances are they haven't revisited Corel applications in years. I wish more employers of graphic designers would use CorelDraw and Photopaint. You can't go wrong with these applications and you will save lots of money and help your staff to be more productive.

If you're a die hard PhotoShop fan like I was, you need this program. NEEEEEEEED it. It does all the things that Photoshop does, plus some, and guess what guys? It runs FASTER than Photoshop ever did.

Trust me, I'm a digital artist, not some grandma fooling around with the contrast levels on her grandaughter's baby pictures- and I tell you that this is the program you need if you're serious about your art. You can do line drawings, vector graphics, 3-d design, photo editing, image animation and movie editing, and it's got one hell of a painting set up very similar to PhotoShop but the effects are faster, there are no lags, and they are even more tweakable than PS was.

And guess what guys? If you've got years worth of old PhotoShop files that you're worried about losing? You can buy this product and be saved, because Corel Draw Graphics Suite will open PSD files (among many many others) so you won't lose your images OR layers. You can keep right on working with your art without losing anything.

It's also got an "in program" pressure sensitive draw pad configuration- so you don't have to argue with Photoshop and go outside of the program to readjust your draw pad every few days.

I can't tell you guys enough, save the $700 you'd spend on PhotoShop and buy this and a Waacom draw pad instead- not only will you be glad you've got $400 bucks left in your pocket, you'll fall in love with the ease of creating your art all over again, just like back in the day when all it took was crayons and some construction paper. That's just how good Corel Draw Graphics Suite 12 is.

I've used the Corel Draw suites since v7 for all my various print and web projects. I've never had to use any other product to achieve completion to my projects - in fact, I consistantly have to fix graphics at work that other people/apps can't handle with AI or FH. For its price, it's the best bang for the buck: a vector editor, bitmap editor, tons of fonts and clipart, font manager, bitmap-to-vector editor, etc. You're not going to get this much product at a better price. I know some have said their PCs crash with the product, yet I've never had a problem with any well-kept PC (and I use three different PCs). This means a relatively stable OS (Win2K or XP), an adequate amount of RAM (756MB min, but I never use a system with less than 1GB personally), good video card with current drivers, good printer with current drivers, and proper setup/maint of your hard drives, etc.

I've been using Corel products since version 2 or 3 (I just don't remember), when the whole program (Corel DRAW those days) could fit in three 5 1/2 inch floppy disks. Every upgrade since then has been amazing, and they fulfill every niche that's left unexplored in the previous one.
A very easy-to-use interface and a very user-friendly application is what you'll get with the graphic suite 12. Of course, it demands a lot from your hardware (and I mean A LOT), but with the right configuration of hardware and operative system, you'll be almost as crash free as with a Mac (well, not quite... ;-) ). The integration between the components of the suite is seamless and very easy to implement. The automatic updates keeps your software up and running with the latests releases; and the portability of objects to Office and other Windows based programs results in optimizing my time. I use Corel for everything, from page layout (leaflets, magazines and newspapers), to image editing, to pre-printing jobs.
Taking in account the cost and the frendliness of the application I always wonder how people still buys Adobe.
Just buy this and you wont regret it

I've used Graphics software for everything from brochures, catalogs, posters, flyers, mass mailings, and now highly technical scale drawings in archaeology. I have used ALL programs from Adobe, Macromedia, ACD Systems (Canvas 9 GIS+), and Corel. In my opinion, Corel Graphics Suite 12 is the most advanced and stable suite of programs I've used. Corel delivers on its promises. The filters that make it compatible with most important competitors actually work and work well. I purchased an educational version directly from Corel for $99.