Software Review of:
Photo-Paint 
Version 9 

When I got home, I found the disk, installed it, became tremendously impressed by it, upgraded to version 9 from Corel’s website and it is becoming one of my primary photo editing software tools. I say “becoming one of my tools” because I’m still figuring out the idiosyncracies of the program.

I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop for a couple of years and although I’m a neophyte Photoshop user, still climbing a steep learning curve. I’ll probably try to compare the two programs in this review.

Photo-Paint 9 is the first serious competitive threat to Photoshop’s hold on the high-end graphics desktop. For every tool available in Photoshop, Photo-Paint has 2, 3 or more for added flexibility to do the same job. For instance, Photo-Paint comes with 21 toolbars (plus 31 flavors of Property Bars), not to mention 12, count ‘em, 12 Dockers. A typical Corel approach, you can add, remove, and rearrange buttons on both existing and new custom toolbars. The same can be done with the commands that are available in the Menu Bar. Many of the default keyboard combinations can be altered, or new combinations can be made. While all three areas — toolbars, menus, and keyboard commands — offer unique benefits, the configurable toolbars offer the power-user some of the greatest advantages.

Here’s what you get with Photo-Paint 9:

• 1,500 photos (to practice on).
• 1,200 clipart images and symbols (to mess with).
• 1,500 floating objects.
• 800 TrueType and Type 1 fonts.
• Canto Cumulus Desktop LE 4.0, organizes media and graphics files into a catalog which can be indexed.
• MS Visual Basic for Applications 6 — industry standard scripting technology.
• Bitstream Font Navigator for font management.
• Corel Texture to add realistic natural textures to your projects.
• Corel Capture, an advanced screen capture utility.
• Corel Script Editor, a scripting application to develop macros and to automate tasks.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0
• QuickTime 3.0.2
• Digimarc Digital Watermarking to protect your work.
• A 670 page User Guide full of color plates.
• A 165 page Libraries Catalog.

One thing I am ecstatic about is I can save a graphic not only as a .CPT file (native Photo-Paint file extension) but as a .BMP, PCX, TGA, JPG, TIF, PSD, EPS and four other graphic file formats. This feature greatly aids sending graphic files to others, many of whom are limited as to the type of graphic file extensions they can open.

Masks
One of the first things that separate a high-end photo editing program from a “greeting card” type of program is Masking; the ability to “mask” out the background from an object, then use the masked object in a different setting. Photo-Paint 9 offers nine masking tools including the popular “Magic Wand” tool found in Photoshop, plus a “Scissors” and a “Paint Brush” tool which are unique to Photo-Paint. With the Paint Brush tool, you simply “paint” around the object you wish to mask.

PP9 lets users preview the result of applying a Mask menu Shape command to an image by showing a ruby overlay on screen. The Shape commands include Feather, Border, Smooth, Threshold, Expand and Reduce. This greatly streamlines editing since you can see the result of applying masks and adjust it before committing to the result.

Furthermore, you can now create lenses from masks. Lenses include 23 non-destructive visual effects that can be applied to an image. A lens exists as an independent object and can be crated from a mask. Lens options appear in an alphabetical list box with a check box that indicates whether the lens should be created from a current mask.

This version of PP includes a new interface for the Paint, Effect, Clone and Image Sprayer tools. All of the brush setting controls, including Pen settings, now exist on the single-page Brush Settings Docker window, giving you access to controls while painting. There is a sizable library of easily customizable brushes. For enhanced precision while painting, a crossbar has been added to the center of the brush shape cursor, and a fast cursor redraw mechanism has been implemented for on-screen cursor resizing. Soft edge transparency, rotation and flatness controls are integrated into a new Nib Dial control that helps users visualize the shape of the brush tip. Keyboard up and down arrow keys can be used in combination with the mouse to simulate the result of painting with a pressure-sensitive pen and tablet device. The color palette has numerous options. You can set it to display — or hide — color components, a mixing area, color name and which colors are out of gamut.

A tool that is fascinating to me, but can easily be over-used, is an image sprayer. You can choose from 24 images that can be (after a bit of practice) sprayed on an existing image. Corel has committed to making more sprayer images available on its website for downloading.

PP9 now includes a Text tool, which gives you most of the artistic text setting features found in CorelDRAW. There are many new format options available in the Format Text dialog box. When you select text for editing, the outline color can be edited by right-clicking on a color swatch in the color palette. The text object can contain up to 32,000 characters and multiple fonts. I did a character count in this review for comparison and it totals 9,959 characters.

Printing features
For high-end printing, preflight warnings give the PP 9 user important feedback — and warnings about any issues related to the printing job — and includes suggestions about how to avoid the problem in the future.

Job ticketing
Still an emerging technology in the prepress industry, users can create basic job tickets to inform a printing company about the production details for each job. You can create an embedded or external job ticket conforming to Adobe’s PJTF format.

Artistic effects
One of the most frequently used tools in Adobe Photoshop is Effects filters. PP9 matches each of those in Photoshop one for one and adds a number of new ones. Here is where Corel really shines. As you learn to use each Effect, you begin to experiment by adding a different effect to an earlier one. Suddenly, you are being creative — creating something you immediately want to share with others.

The growing popularity of digital cameras prompted Corel to produce a digital camera version of Photo-Paint 9 which is listed on its website for $79.00!! I have no idea of whether anything is omitted from the version of Photo-Paint being reviewed here but if you have a digital camera, run, don’t walk to your favorite software store to buy this program. In Photo-Paint 9, images can be acquired directly from digital camera eliminating the need for a third-party interface to move images from camera to PC before editing. Then, enhanced image files can be sent back to your digital camera for storage and sharing. The ixla digital camera interface with Photo-Paint 9 uses a plug-and-play interface for acquiring images from over 120 digital camera models.

QuickTime movies
PP9 supports the import of QuickTime movie files in the .MOV file format. It also supports the export of animation to the single track .MOV format. Corel states that all QuickTime compression methods and codes are also supported. PP9 users can create, open, edit and save single or multiple-node QuickTime VR Panoramas and Objects.

Summary
PP9 is ideal for retouching photographs, adding special effects to images, creating art from text, creating animated .GIF and video files. By combining special effects filters with masking, object editing and painting tools that provide power and versatility, a graphic artist or desktop publisher can easily transform ideas into images. This program is for the professional graphics designer and desktop publisher and easily meets the needs of these professions.

System requirements
Corel PP 9 requires some substantial systems resources to work properly. First off, you’ll need Win95/98 or WinNT. You will need a minimum of 64MB RAM but 128MB will be better and 256MB should make it fly. The performance increase you will get with additional RAM greatly outweighs the dollar/benefit increase you will see with almost any other hardware purchase. Don’t consider a CPU less than a Pentium II or competitive AMD chip. Your hard disk drive should have at least 500 MB to spare. If you are into graphics and desktop publishing, you aren’t going to be satisfied with a monitor less than 17" — 19" will be better. Of course you will need a Zip drive or other similar format to carry large digital files to the color separator or to the printer. A color printer will be nice but seldom have I seen home ink jet color printouts matching high end output devices. Last, a drawing tablet such as a Wacom tablet or similar drawing device would be a nice addition to your setup but since I’ve never used one, I’ll have to be satisfied with PP 9's mouse and keyboard arrow keys for paint brush pressure.

The cost of PP 9 is shown on Corel’s website for $495. The website upgrade price is listed at $199 although I upgraded from PP8 to PP9 on the website for $99. Go figure. Users of the following programs qualify for the upgrade price to buy PP 9: Corel WordPerfect Suite, Corel Ventura, CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Macromedia Freehand. 

My recommendation
If you want to move up from the greeting card type of software programs to try more challenging graphic/photo enhancement techniques, consider this program. It will cost you less than Photoshop but has the same powerful tools. Shop around at some of the local software stores and on the Internet before you spend $199 for PP9, much less $495. If you have a digital camera, it’s a no brainer — go for the $79 digital camera version.

Corel Corporation
1600 Carling Ave.
Ottawa, Canada, K1Z, 8R7
Website: < www.corel.com>.