When Image Matters
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SOFT COPY ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) WWhenhen iimagemage mmattersatters Creating images, whether it be for the offi ce newsletter or customer brochures, requires some special tools. Michael Palamountain from Enex TestLab puts you in the picture. to where you want to publish them. initial foray a company would make towards To bring some scope to this review we have image creation products. assumed the position of a medium-sized busi- ness that, while outsourcing the bulk of its HOW WE TESTED he software available nowadays to design and publishing operation, wants a soft- In order to try out the features and usabil- create, edit and manipulate images is ware package that will provide a solid in-house ity of these applications we carried out two T dazzling. There is software dedicated capability for newsletters, reports, signage, and similar operations in each. The fi rst test was to just about every facet of production and drafting their ideas for outsourcing. to produce a circle and fi ll it with a chosen publishing—from print to the Web, the art of In most image-related application suites colour—fairly simple. creating and publishing images has become the two core products will usually be one vec- The second test was to produce a highly specialised, so naturally the tools to do tor-orientated application and one bitmap-ori- seven-pointed star—using auto-shapes if this have also become specialised. entated one. These two programs form what possible—and fi ll the star with a gradu- There are applications available on the mar- would usually be the primary tools where ated rainbow colour fi ll with a perpendicular ket from a range of vendors. Most can usually most of the initial image design and editing transparency gradient. be purchased separately, but more commonly is carried out. This second task will employ both multi-stop vendors are packaging related software togeth- What follows is a look at these key ap- gradients (ie, a gradient where colour and/or er into suites. These will often contain tools an- plications from some popular vendors such as transparency changes from one value to an- gled at one publishing medium or another, and Adobe, Corel, Macromedia and other open- other several times across a specifi ed fi eld eg, so the selection you might make will depend on source options. We test the capability of each a gradual change from blue to red, then red to what sorts of images you were working with, to perform standard bitmap and vector image purple, then purple to black) and masking ca- how you want to create or manipulate them and creation and editing that we feel represents the pability (a method of blocking part of an image 66 T&B FEBRUARY 2006 www.technologyandbusiness.com.au Image.indd 66 2/21/2006, 11:15:10 AM ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) When image matters so as to protect it from change). Any decent ILLUSTRATOR graphics application will have these features, Adobe’s vector drawing application, Illustrator, so we were concerned with how easy it would contains 21 fi lters in four categories (colours, ency fi lters. be to achieve the result. We also looked at the create, distort and stylise) as well as 69 other ef- The masking range of fi lters and other effects available for fects including 3D, path-fi nding and distortion. feature allows for manipulating images. There does seem to be some overlap between extremely complex fi lters and effects, and some Photoshop effects merging of image ob- ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 2 are also available in addition to 15 transpar- jects, including shaped trans- Adobe currently offers a bundle of software parency masks. At times, our called Creative Suite. This package features tests showed that the package’s im- its two fl agship products—Photoshop (for bit- mense fl exibility came at the expense maps) and Illustrator (for vectors). of the intuitiveness of the method. Both are strictly graphics applications but the Upon opening a new document it gives you suite also includes tools geared more towards the opportunity to choose a title and colour presenting your work, such as GoLive for Web mode, as well as the page size and orienta- publishing, InDesign for desktop publishing tion. For the fi rst test we were able to use and Acrobat for PDF creation. Packed with the circle tool—dragging on the canvas sized features, this is one image creation suite with the circle. We could then select from features the lot for the serious professional user. Crea- such as transparency, line style, colour and tive Suite is available for both Windows and thickness, and fi lling colour from the tool bar Mac OS operating systems. Illustrator: star with graduated colour which appears whenever the circle object is www.technologyandbusiness.com.au T&B FEBRUARY 2006 67 Image.indd 67 2/21/2006, 11:15:31 AM SOFT COPY ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) PProductroduct Adobe PProductroduct CorelDRAW PProductroduct FreeHand MX Creative Suite 2 Premium Graphics Suite X3 and Fireworks 8 VVendorendor Adobe VVendorendor Corel VVendorendor Adobe (formerly Macromedia) PPhonehone 1300 550 205 PPhonehone 1800 658 850 PPhonehone 1300 550 205 WWebeb www.adobe.com.au WWebeb www.corel.com WWebeb www.adobe.com.au WWarrrantyarrranty Complimentary phone WWarrrantyarrranty One complimentary WWarrrantyarrranty Free online support (e- support for installation and product phone call, online support (e-mail and mail and knowledgebase) and forums. defects; free access to online forums and user groups), knowledgebase software, PPricerice Freehand full: $605 FAQs, updates and patches. updates and patches. Upgrade: $150 PPricerice Full product: $1999 PPricerice Full product: $749 Studio 8 full: $1515 Upgrade from Photoshop: $1499 Upgrade: $349 Upgrade: $605 Upgrade from CS1: $999 Academic: $189 Fireworks as separate full: $455 Upgrade: $230 IInteroperabilitynteroperability IInteroperabilitynteroperability ½ Good range of major file formats. Excellent range of formats. IInteroperabilitynteroperability ½ Excellent range of formats. FFutureproofingutureproofing FFutureproofingutureproofing ½ Provides for standard graphics plus good All the features needed for intricate FFutureproofingutureproofing ½ expansion into Web publishing. graphic construction. Good features for graphics and some Web development. RROIOI RROIOI Not overpriced but overkill for graphic The right easy-to-use tools at a fair RROIOI ½ design. price. Reasonable price and features, overkill if full Studio suite. SServiceervice SServiceervice Typical software support channels. Typical software support channels. SServiceervice Typical software support channels. RRatingating HHH½ RRatingating HHHH RRatingating HHH½ selected—all of the tasks in this test were easy gradients was simple and we were able to com- very well. Illustrator is capable of exporting to to complete. plete the process using a single mask. a variety of fi le formats including AutoCAD, The next test took a little more learning time An interesting component of Illustrator is SVG and animated Flash fi les. (with a assistance from the help fi les). To cre- Live Trace which can be used to convert bit- ate our seven-pointed star Illustrator includes mapped images into vector images. There are PHOTOSHOP a dedicated star tool in its auto-shapes list, various options for this function which deal Obviously Photoshop is designed for photo ma- with additional variables such as the number of with the level of detail required and edge-de- nipulation but you can also create new bitmaps points and the inner and outer radii. Manipula- tection methods. You will need to experiment a from scratch. tion of multiple-stop colour and transparency little to get the result you want but it can work You are actually able to create and manipu- TEST BENCH Interoperability Futureproofing ROI Service What is the What is Cost versus What sort of range of formats the range of the usability basic service handled? features and and features options are functions? included. included? 68 T&B FEBRUARY 2006 www.technologyandbusiness.com.au Image.indd 68 2/21/2006, 11:15:51 AM ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) PProductroduct GIMP 2.2 while to learn the necessary steps. We even- PProductroduct Inkscape 0.43 VVendorendor GIMP tually achieved a result by using one shape VVendorendor Inkscape PPhonehone N/A mask applied to a layer containing both the PPhonehone N/A transparency gradient and the colour gradi- WWebeb www.gimp.org WWebeb www.inkscape.org ent. Creating a star was achieved by selecting WWarrrantyarrranty Online forums the polygon tool—a star/polygon toggle was WWarrrantyarrranty Online forums PPricerice Free (open source) one of its options. Both these tasks were far PPricerice Free (open source) easier to achieve in Illustrator, but to be fair IInteroperabilitynteroperability ½ these are not the core functions for a photo- IInteroperabilitynteroperability Good range of major bitmap formats. editing application. Exports mainly to “alternative” products The colour and texture fi lters for photo ma- FFutureproofingutureproofing nipulation do a very good job; we got some very FFutureproofingutureproofing A developing product, a bit “rough” and interesting results applying these to images. A developing product, masking is needed bitmaps only. Photoshop includes a wide range of highly