Customer Reviews

Ulead PhotoImpact 10 - Professional Image Editing Made Easy

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

 

 

This is a interesting software package to work with because you can be happy with it as a beginner who just 'picks and clicks' and also as an advanced user controlling layers, masks and color channels, vector drawing and painting tools allow you to tweak to your heart's desire.

You can get very good results with little knowledge with just the single 'autofix' button or choose from the multitude of preset buttons for creating lots of standard corrections and effects such as correcting under or overexposure. The software is even capable of changing the 'look' of the preset buttons (whose size can be controled/changed) to a 'preview' of the change to your photograph. The presets are a scripts of various individual tools. You can create your own scripts, combining tools in any order you wish. You can also work with each tool independently either with presets for that specific tool or by using the controls to create your own degree of effect. You can also batch process photos, so if you have repetative tasks such as embeding a copyright or making smaller thumbnails of a group of photos you can create a script and run it against a group of photos.

Almost every tool, allows you to see simultaneous before and after views (side by side) of the change or a split screen before and after combination of the photograph being changed. You can also apply any effect as a 'preview' and can undo any tool, script to any level.

One of the great preset tools in the package is the "Beautify Skin" tool. Removes acne with just a click! Better than ProActive or Stridex! This tool can be used as a spot remover; as a way to even skin tone or give someone a tan. Perfect for your kids whose skin is not always perfect.

I particularly like the choice of selection tools. Besides the standard selection by color or lasso, you can 'choose' with several different methods and tools. They have a smart extraction tool that lets you paint a broad outline of the area(s) you want to select and the software does the dirty work (provided there is enough contrast/color difference) to give you a fine division between the subjects. The video shows them selecting out a pug from a photograph and using him on a geometric background created with other tools. Layers, paths, 3D, animation, and the ability to use 3rd party Photoshop (.8bf type) plugins are also part of the package's features.

Additional effects such as adding "Lightning" to a shot can be lots of fun. I have a shot of the top of the Pierre Hotel in NYC taken on a bright sunny day, which looks like 'sleeping beauty's castle' and turned it into one with a lightning strike on a dark night. There are lots of interesting effects, and some great frame overlays, backgrounds and objects in the package. You can cut out the backgrounds and put fireworks or overlay the fireworks on existing backgrounds just to name a few.

Photo Web pages complete with thumbnails, rollovers, javascript can also be generated.

The biggest bonus of the package is that it comes with Video lessons and there are additional lessons available on the Ulead website. I admit that there are some areas that are confusing in the manual, but they are made up by the clarity of the videos and the additional tutorials on the web site. Be prepared to spend a lot of happy time playing with your photographs.

The Suite contains some additional software, a GIF Animator, a Photo Explorer, Cool 360 for making panarama and a vrml type experience There is also software to burn slideshow CD's for your TV, Lots of fun.

I have used a number of photo editors from Photoshop Professional to some of the original programs in the early 80's and I find Version 10 to have almost every feature that I would want in an editor. Since I used version 5 for a number of years the learning curve for me was pretty flat. I do especially like the touch-up feature as I do photo touch up frequently. The clone features are still there as well as a red eye repair which I often see with pictures taken with digital cameras. I do appreciate the simplfied version of the tool bar which appears at the top when a tool is selected and the ease of toggling to a full version of the tool features on the right of the screen with a simple tab to move in and it out of the way for a full view. A really great product worth the money. Might take the novice to photo editing a bit of time to find all the "goodies" but well worth spending a bit of time to learn..

I bought this product because I am in love with Ulead Video Studio 9, and wanted to maximize the benefits of family connectivity, such as importation of animated lighting effects into my videos. I am very happy with this.

I have only two complaints so far:
(1) My 48 bit scans must be converted to 24 bit before most editing operations are possible. I think Ulead wants me to buy PhotoImpact 11 to remedy that.
(2) My major complaint is that I cannot obtain a clean cloning line. The ability to set percentage of color drawn from the source, and to set percentage of soft edge in application make for a wonderful improvement over the free Adobe PhotoDeluxe software I replaced, but I sorely miss being able to clean right up to the edge of a colored area in an image. PI 10 pulls color from the adajacent field if you get really close, and this is extremely frustrating.

I believe I have gone through every Photo Editor Trial out there, and this is by far the best. Yes even better than great and glorious photoshop. why? cause it's user friendly. you dont have to be a technical geek. im not one of them, and i could figure out how to use all the tools before i lost my creativity.
and for fifty something dollars! this is truly worth the buy. if only i had the money, hahaha.
on a more personal note, this program allowed me to do some art that saved my life really it did. so i guess this is a thanks to ulead, your 30 day trial saved my life, and helped my imagination run free.

I have been using Ulead PhotoImpact since version 3.0, and have found it a lot easier to learn to use than Photoshop.
In later versions such as this, it is not nearly as intuitive for new users, but it has a lot more creative features.
I do a lot of part time graphics and photo work, and have yet to find a project it can't handle.
Value for money, it is hard to beat.

If you want to compare this product to Adobe's PhotoShop, which I also own, you will be sorely disappointed. The ability to work with layers is lacking, and being able to interact with individual items can be trying at times, but for less experienced users, PhotoImpact can be an invaluable tool.

For the casual photo editor and layperson, PhotoImpact is very user friendly, and can complete many tasks using wizards, or easy to use previews (provided you utilize the excellently laid out Easy Palette). The Component Designer makes it easy to create buttons and icons for web site design that are easily customizable and present a professional looking result. The materials galleries allow you to create excellent three-dimensional effects in objects, ranging from glassy and transparent to shiny metal, to rock or almost any other texture you might desire. Compared to PhotoShop, this is quite easy to accomplish, and quick to view without taking up quite as much memory.

All in all, I would recommend this for someone who does not care to poke and prod at the minutiae of editing that you can only do in PhotoShop, as regardless, this is a powerful program with many redeeming features.

I have owned versions of PhotoImpact since version 7. My wife first started learning by looking over my shoulder, then one day, she wanted to play with the program herself. Within a few weeks, and without looking at any manuals or "How-To" books, my wife had become quite a good banner and button maker.

Since then, we have come a long way in our website skills and our desire to mold our images into new creations. We have also purchased a camera in the last year, which was my first digital one. Not only is this program great for beginners to start making their own web graphics, but it is also an excellent software to turn good pictures into portraits like the pros.

This program by far, is just shy of having all the bells and whistles of one of its top contenders: Photoshop CS2
One difference: You don't have to be a webmaster guru or photo fanatic to start making the program do what you want it to do.
My wife and I both agree, that the learning curve is definetly more difficult on Photoshop, than PhotoImpact, by far.

One other thing about this, is COST. As stated, PhotoImpact has basically all the extras and tools as its competitor Photoshop, but PhotoImpact costs less!. The cost of PhotoImpact and all its other free tools such as gif animator, cool 360, and Photo Explorer are even less than just an "upgrade" on the other software program. Why pay just for an upgrade code when you can have an entire set of tools at your disposal for a fraction of the upgrade cost? If you buy the boxed CD, you also get an in depth manual that helps to explain all the possibilities PhotoImpact 10 can do.

For anyone wanting to fix digital photos, or make their own web graphics without having a 4 year degree to figure it out, or spending way to much money to get the software... then this program is exactly what you are looking for!

Enjoy!
~Chuck

I've always liked Photoimpact. It has a Lot of features. But every time I tried it, I had trouble with the component download. When you want to use a special feature it says it needs to download a component, then the download freezes or takes forever. They just don't seem to be able to fix this or put enough bandwidth on their site. I've had this problem with different computers, providers and OSes, so it's not just my configuration. I've had no problem downloading anything else.

So eventually, I'd give up on Photoimpact due to their awful component download even though I like it better than other graphics programs.

In fact, I just went to the ulead site to try it one more time, and sure enough the darn site doesn't load. I've got a high speed connection and everything else is loading quickly. I'm still waiting on ulead as I write this. I guess they just don't want to pay for decent commercial bandwidth, which is a real shame since it's a top product.

In terms of documentation and screen layout and logic one of the worst programs I've ever encoutered. One example: the documentation index lists an Object Extraction Wizard and refers the reader to page 25. On page 25, an Object Extraction Wizard is listed as one of the program's features, but there's no information there (or anywhere else in the documentation that I can find) about where it is or how to access it. More frustrating, the instructions in the documation all begin by referring the reader to one of the seven or eight panels or toolbars on the user interface, but none of those toolbars or panels is labelled on screen, and the names they've been given in the documentation are so generic as to be indistinquisable; the net effect is that before you can begin to follow the instructions, you first have to come to a full stop, while you search the documation for the location of the panel or toolbar being referred to. Numerous other frustrations emerge after you manage to find the correct panel or toolbar--why should the burn or dodge tool be hidden within an eliminate red-eye icon?--but I'll just finish by saying that this is not remotely a modern or logical or user-friendly interface.