Software Review of:
PrintMaster 
Platinum 11 

The software was a snap to install. This program became available March 16, 2001 and includes 8 CD-ROM’s. It is recommended for Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, or NT 4.0. Your system needs 64 MB of RAM, at least a 166 MHz processor with 585 MB of free hard disk space. Other basics are a 4X CD-ROM, 800X600, 16-bit color graphics capability, Windows compatible mouse, sound card and speakers, a 28.8 Kbps modem connection to the Internet and Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher. It also “works with most popular printers supported by Windows.” After installation and registration, the program is quite intuitive, using both icon-like symbols and text to let you navigate through the myriad of choices at your fingertips.

Now, you might be wondering what to do with all of the content and images I have described. Well, let’s take a look. First of all, if you have never done anything creative in your life, there is still hope, if you employ this program. I say this because of the 11,000 project templates you are provided, such as traditional greeting cards, banners, invitations, photo projects that allow you to crop and enhance your digital photos for collages, online albums, slide shows and screen savers. The family can work together on these projects, creating calendars, newsletters, CD labels, switch plate covers, bottle labels or recipe cards, garden stakes and seed packets and even gift bags and boxes. Another neat idea is to use iron-on transfers to make tee shirts, clothing, or backpacks more unique and/or personal. I have done this for my children and they both loved the results. There was a specific objective built into this program to involve children in the application of this software. The Kid’s Stuff area focuses on providing homework help as well as a variety of projects for children to work on, either together with a parent or independently, depending on the child’s needs, age and sophistication. 

Since this issue of our magazine has a drawing/graphics/photo-editing theme, I will try to emphasize those aspects of this program. The “Fix Flaw” apparatus automatically eliminates red-eye, shine on the face, and lens dust or scratched print problems. The Enhanced Photo Workshop sports an improved, easy to use, cropping tool, which lets you do normal cropping but also endows the user with the option of inserting different backgrounds to augment the look and feel of their photos. Expanded color and texture editing allows the photo enthusiast to test a variety of looks with the “Painterly” and “Colorization” utensils. Additional special artistic effects, like “Pixel” or “Antique,” can improve the resulting look of some photos that need help as they currently exist. Like most other programs of the photo-editing genre, import photos from your scanner, digital camera or a photo disc and get creative! 

There is a basic and advanced search capability (with so many images, a necessity) that magnifies the user friendliness of this product. Art Gallery is enhanced in this version and lets you organize, store and retrieve photos or other images by the simple drag and drop function. Another real strength is the help system provided and the tutorials that aid with program use and design tricks. A sample pack of special paper is included in the box with Gloss and Matte finished greeting card stock, postcards and envelopes to get you started. MasterArt is a unique collection of watercolors, etchings and paintings by renowned artists. As mentioned earlier searches can be done in a variety of ways besides by keywords, for example, searching may be accomplished and refined by means of Featured Art, Tone, Graphic Type, Collections or Categories. 

There are a number of other new features in this version. One new feature is that you may create Slide Shows from arrangements of your favorite photographs. Screen Savers are easy to produce and give you virtually unlimited choice in what you can do with your background and screen. Party Creator Wizard helps you make invitations, place cards, party hats and centerpieces after you choose a theme for the party or event. Using their template, all that you are required to do is type in the details of your occasion and then print out your matching party trimmings. Multimedia is available at your leisure, just go to the Add Multimedia menu and attach a background sound or video clip to any PrintMaster greeting card. Card Converter makes it easy if you change your mind about the kind of greeting card you want. It will alter the layout of the card without requiring you to redesign it from scratch. 

I must report the results of one project I did. I took a number of snapshots from my digital camera of my son Jackson playing Tee Ball and created a fun slide show. Initially, I imported the digital images from a disk. Once I selected the images I wanted to include, I could create my own slide show. I then chose some fun sounds to enhance the show and after completing that step, clicked the Slide Show/Screensaver toolbar button. That was all there was to it. It was mostly intuitive; of course, I had previously watched the tutorial on making a slide show. That was what made it seem so intuitive, I believe. While I neglected to adequately emphasize it earlier, it really seemed to me that this version of PrintMaster did an excellent job of merging multimedia, sound files, drawing, photos and animation into an affordable, functional and enjoyable piece of computer software. In terms of content quality and quantity included in the box and program functionality, this program shines brightly.

The Learning Company is the parent company for Brøderbund Software and is well respected for providing interactive, educational technology tools for both school and home settings. In keeping with their agenda, they have established an online presence for creative ideas, projects and solutions at www.Expressit.com where you can send, share or even store projects online. They also sell distinctive paper products and allow users to choose to have projects printed professionally and mailed directly to them from this site. If creativity is your thing, then plunk down the cash for this powerful software package. It will keep you busy learning and having fun, especially if you utilize it with your loved ones. 

This product may be purchased online for $39.95 from The Learning Company and may be found at other online stores. The Gold version was priced at $24.95 and $19.95 was the list price for the Silver version. If you prefer not to order it online and then wait for it to arrive, check for this product at a local computer, retail or discount store. There should be several local stores that offer it.