Customer Reviews

Instant Landscaping

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After attempting to landscape my house using a photo I'd taken and images from a google image search, I figured there had to be an easier way. So, I purchased Instant Landscaping. "From hedges to hot tubs," the packaging claims, it's "the perfect way to customize your lot before you reach for the tools!" It lies! You know what was a more perfect way to customize my lot than this waste of ten bucks? Using google image search. Because USING GOOGLE NETTED ME MORE AND BETTER QUALITY LANDSCAPING IMAGES THAN THIS SOFTWARE HAS. Seriously.

The images the software has are nothing more than cut-outs from other peoples' homes. For example, a rock wall with jagged edges where bushes have been edited out and a fence with, obviously, a HILL cut out of the bottom of it are included in the lousy image database. The images are not scaled relative to each other, so a tree an inch high complements a shrub five times larger. Scaling the tree does not result in a bigger version of the tree, just a pixelated mess because the image is so small. So, I uploaded a picture of my backyard and the tree in the software was about the size of my front steps while a shrub was normal-sized.

Then there are silly categories like pets and people. This way you can put your pet dolphin in your garden (there are only two dogs available--a sheep dog and a dachshund) to make it more realistic! Ridiculous. The people category includes a child playing with a puppy--a child that, relative to your tree, is going to be about forty feet tall when sitting. Oh, and don't forget the "shapes" category, for that fifty-foot tall "#1 Dad Wooden Picture Frame" I know we all aspire to have in our yards.

All in all, this software was a waste of money. I accomplished better results working with images found in a google image search--and those were better quality images to boot.

This software gets one star, and that's not because zero isn't available, but because it certainly is user-friendly. Someone unfamiliar with technology would be able to figure out how to drag and drop images...but they'd be able to figure out how to type in "large tree" into google image search a lot quicker.

Woooooooosh.

That's the sound of ten dollars blowing out the window. I heard it while I was buying this software but thought it was just a breeze. In retrospect, there was no wind that day and the door was closed.

Oh, well.