Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flexible works at all levels, August 16, 2005
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.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
PhotoImpact Gets it Done, July 22, 2005
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..
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great except for cloning, November 3, 2005
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.
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