Review of: |
| Just what the computer world needs, another graphics package. We already
have applications from CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator and MICROGRAFX, and
those are just the better known ones. Why then did this one catch my eye?
Read on.
The two constants among the above major apps are high system requirements and high price. COREL needs Windows 95 or NT 4.0, a Pentium 90 (133 recommended), SVGA, 16 MB RAM (32 strongly recommended); MICROGRAFX needs Windows 95 or NT 3.51, a 486DX/33, VGA or better, 8MB RAM (12 MB recommended); Adobe is similar. I won't go into prices as they vary too widely, but none can be considered cheap. What this also means is that the old computer great aunt Sadie gave you years ago that you are still happily using , won't cut it! Is this progress? Yes, but it is also frustrating and expensive. Computer Support Corporation might be able to relieve some of the frustration, and I know it will help you save some money. Arts & Letters EXPRESS contains two manuals and three CD's. One CD is for EXPRESS, along with a manual. A second CD is Picture Perfect, and a manual. The third CD contains over 15,000 pieces of clip art. I have my computer set up for multiple boot, so I can compare Windows
95 and Windows 3.1 for both apps. I still have DOS and Windows 3.1 on my
machine because I do not like Windows 95. I have a relationship with it
akin to the US and the Soviet Union during the peak of the Cold War — I
wish it would go away, but I guess I will have to live with it (for now).
InstallationInstallation is typical CD, except this one has no autostart for Win95. You must select install from the menu, and the same applies to 3.1. EXPRESS went on without a hitch for both 95 and 3.1, although it took slightly less time for 95- 2 minutes 17 seconds, to 3 minutes 26 seconds for 3.1. As is almost standard, you select from various menus. I placed it on partition J under Windows 95, and partition I for Windows 3.1, and had no complaints from EXPRESS. Somewhat out of the ordinary, EXPRESS can be run entirely from CD, taking no room on your hard drive. As it requires only a 2x CD-ROM, the manual advises against it as you will notice a performance penalty. Although my CD is a 12x, I didn't try this. Under the install options menu, be very selective as to the clip art you want installed, or you will end up with over 200 MB on you hard drive! My choices for testing added up to over 114 MB.After installation, you need to check on the setup options. Starting the app brought a flashback to the 60's! I think it is Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass playing the theme from "The Dating Game" (yes, I am that old). You will need a sound card to hear this, and the tutorials-demo, but not to use the program. After assuring myself I was not in some type of time distortion, I checked the default settings. They are set to the most commonly used specs, so you can begin using the program immediately. There are none of the ubiquitous "wizards", but you really don't need any. One of the claims for this app is ease of use. It really is easier to use for me, but this might fall under the beauty in the eye of the beholder. The manual is very comprehensive, and easy to read. An online help system is loaded, and is highly graphical. There are "Readme Firsts"; an interface showing explanations of icons; "Menu Commands"; "Content Button" — right click the mouse on an object for help; "Tutorials"; "Tool Explanations"; "Command EXplanations" by alphabetical selection; and a "GLOSSARY". There are some nice touches not expected in this lower priced and lower equipment requirement application. Overlays allow you to add many complex layers to an object to completely alter it's appearance without changing the original. Think of this as similar to cartoon animation where you slightly alter an image over and over to create the illusion of movement. Only here you simply want to create a complex image. There are over 20,000 clip art images included on the EXPRESS CD, and another 15,000 on the third CD. Some of the clip art in some applications is pretty cheesy looking, but this is really good quality, especially the cartoons. It's amazing this is included in the package. EXPRESS works in both RGB (red-green-blue) and CYMK (cyan-yellow-magenta-black). If you have ever wondered why your inkjet color printer never seems to deliver an image the same color as it appears on the monitor, blame it on this. Monitors are set up to work with RGB since these are the colors of the phosphorous dots the electrons strike to make them glow, producing an image. Printers use different colors to blend to produce images, and this prevents a true wysiwyg (what you see is what you get). Arts & Letters EXPRESS includes 91 proprietary vector-based typefaces you can alter and size to create various text effects. After you register, you will receive the Arts & Letters BOSS CD, which includes 1,000 fonts in PostScript, and True Type format and the Arts & Letters Font Manager. An excerpt from an article by Ted Fredstrom shows that this is not a second class application. " Arts & Letters can produce freehand art similar to Corel. One example in use every day is the Texas State lottery ticket. Their color clip art contains several examples of this quality of art work. I understand that several state agencies have attended seminars at Computer Support Corporation and have adopted the program for their communication needs after reviewing the other major programs available." The demo says a woman named Susan Holton actually did the art work. A feature I like is EXPRESS creates it's own initialization file alletter.ini, and doesn't alter the win.ini. Picture Perfect installs from it's own CD, and is as easy as EXPRESS. As it is much smaller, it took even less time. During the install, Picture Perfect did what I think ALL install programs should-it found a newer version of a file(ctl3d.dll) already on my machine, and ASKED me if I wanted to keep it or overwrite! Bravo! The install only takes up a little over 7 MB in it's own directory while leaving over 280 MB of high quality PHOTOS on the CD. As this is a typical photo-image manipulator, I will not go into much detail on operations. There are some nice touches however. Picture Perfect has a surprising number of filters. It also has a unique tool. You can count the number of colors in an image-photo. I tried a photo and it said there were 31,730 colors. Although I am not sure of the value or usefulness, I like it! A really useful tool is the Batch Conversion utility. You select file types you want to convert, and select the types you want to convert them to, then you execute the Batch Utility and convert them all at once. That's a real time saver. It also has a thumbnail viewer similar to the one in MICROGRAFX. There is a 92 page manual including a glossary. The reason I mention a glossary, is many people complain about obscure terms used in the industry, and this is a great idea. It also has a 145 page Picture Perfect On-Line Userguide which is viewed with a Wordperfect Envoy Viewer that is included. Don't let the appearance of the box fool you. This is not only a good package performance wise, it is a good VALUE. I give it a recommend, particularly for those of you who have not embraced Win95 and the Pentium class CPU (clever people!) The system requirements are; 386SX (486 recommended), 2x CD-ROM, 4 MB RAM (8 MB recommended), 13 MB minimum install (or run entirely from CD), and Windows 3.1. I installed this on a Cyrix PR200+, 12x CD-ROM, 64 MB RAM, and both Win95 and Win3.1. Several local stores carried this package on their inventory sheet, but none had it in stock. The going "street' price is $69.95, and All Systems Go will order it for you. You can also order it direct from the publisher for $79.95. Computer Support Corporation, 15926 Midway Road, Dallas, Texas 75244, Voice: 972-661-8960, Fax: 972-661-5429, Web:http://www.arts-letters.com Help from CSC is unlimited and free, but only during normal business hours, and the call is not an 800 number. If you have internet access, there are free fonts, clip art, and a free demo of this on the above web site. Take advantage of it and see if this is something you might want. Russell is a Petroleum Landman. He can be reached by e-mail at: arben@juno.com |