A Review of IBM PC - and Macintosh - Compatible Image Manipulation Software
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A review of IBM PC - and Macintosh - compatible Image Manipulation software Contents Page 2 Introduction 3 xRes 3.0 5 PaintShop Pro 3.0 7 PaintShop Pro 4.0 9 PhotoDeluxe 1.0 11 Photo-Paint 5.0 13 Photo-Paint 6.0 15 Photo-Paint 7.0 17 Picture Publisher 5.0 18 Picture Publisher 6.0 20 Painter 4.0 23 Live Picture 2.5 26 PhotoShop 4.0 29 Effects Plug-ins 1 Introduction respect to specific hardware require- ments (actual and more importantly recommended minimum). In contrast, This software review was com- some of the software tested is best missioned by the Advisory Group on suited to particular applications, for Computer Graphics who requested a example creative ‘painting’ as opposed written report on ‘image editing’ soft- to the editing of existing images, web ware. The broad range of software page design or graphics file conversion, subsequently reviewed was secured by and hence may be more affordable and Chris Whitaker of the Combined Higher tolerant of host machine specification. Education Software Team (CHEST). Two members of university staff Powerful workstations, both net- performed the software evaluation and worked and ‘standalone’, have become in- compiled this report. Thus the report creasingly accessible to university staff aims only to provide an brief review of and students in recent years. Current ‘en- different programs which facilitate the try level’ personal computers, as often pur- manipulation of digital images - we have chased by students, are now capable of largely avoided comparing applications running relatively sophisticated graphics- on a value-for-money basis, since so intensive software. Consequently there many additional factors, including those are many programs available which are mentioned above, are likely to influence suitable for image manipulation and which purchase decisions. The authors con- cater for a wide range of budgets and in- tribute the benefits of quite different, but tended purpose. complementary, backgrounds. Brian During recent months this soft- Boullier began this review as a lecturer ware review has been referred to as an in Cellular Pathology. However he evaluation of ‘image editing’, ‘image recently became the Learning Technol- manipulation’ and even ‘image analysis’ ogy Manager in the Computer Centre at software. In actual fact this apparent the University of Bradford. He has confusion simply reflects the broad acquired a working familiarity with a range of applications for which many of wide range of software and hardware the products tested are commonly used essential to the development and imple- and none of the aforementioned descrip- mentation of computer-aided learning tions is wholly innaccurate. For the materials, which includes image manipu- purpose of the following report the lation software such as reviewed here. description ‘image manipulation’ soft- In contrast Sue Gollifer is a practising ware seems most appropriate. artist and researcher whose work is Some of the software tested, most exhibited regularly in the UK and notably Adobe PhotoShop, provides a abroad. She is a Senior Lecturer in Fine comprehensive range of tools which will Art, and Subject Leader in Printmaking, meet the needs of most forms of digital in the Faculty of Art, Design and Hu- image manipulation. However such manities, at the University of Brighton, software usually comes at a price, both and recently became Art Co-ordinator with regards to initial purchase and any for the recently established CTI in Art & subsequent upgrading but also with Design. She has been using Apple Mac- 2 intosh computers for the last eight petitive applications have become re- years, both in her own work and as a markably similar. Such similarities are medium for teaching. not necessarily a bad thing as the digital The authors also have complimen- artist can more quickly adapt to each tary experience with regards to preferred product if and when necessary. It is computer platforms. Brian Boullier evalu- interesting to note that Macromedia ated the software on a IBM-compatible have preferred to market xRes as a PCs with either a 166 MHz Pentium (non- companion program to Photoshop MMX) processor or 200MHz Pentium Pro rather than as a direct competitor. xRes processor, both with 64MB of RAM and 3.0 mixes many of the powerful image- a 4MB Matrox Millennium display adapter editing features of PhotoShop with providing 32bit colour density at a screen some of the natural media tools of resolution of 1024 X 768. Sue Gollifer Fractal Design Painter. This combina- used a Power Macintosh 7200/90 MHz tion of features will undoubtedly endear Mac, with 32MB of RAM. this program to many users. We hope that this report will pro- Photoshop-compliant plugins are vide useful information to those in Higher rapidly becoming the standard amongst Education seeking to invest in new image image editing programs and xRes is no manipulation software, and perhaps the exception, indeed like before, xRes prerequisite hardware. However any rec- includes a special edition of Kai’s ommendations, implied or otherwise, Power Tools. Other notable features must be considered in the context of indi- include layered xRes ‘objects’ which vidual circumstance. Factors such as in- include their own undo and channel tended purpose, budget constraints and information, and batch conversion of special pricing, available hardware etc. image files to any 1 of 12 formats. will often have a major effect on the cor- XRes supports web file formats such as rect choice. GIF89, Progressive JPEG and PNG. More notable is the facility to optimise colour palettes for selected web brows- Macromedia xRes 3.0 ers and ease at which client-side image maps can be created within the applica- Brian Boullier tion. When used in conjunction with Macromedia Shockwave, xRes 3.0 When first using Macromedia’s represents a powerful image creation xRes 3.0 one is struck by the similarity and editing tool for the web in interface design to several other appli- (Shockwave represents one of the few cations, most notably Adobe widely accepted web plug-ins for ‘mul- PhotoShop as well as some characteris- timedia’ delivery). The painting tools tic elements of Fractal Design Painter. include a full suite of artistic brushes, This is not to imply that functionally the textures and filters – like Fractal Design applications is inherently the same, but Painter this program gives it’s best rather that by a process of evolution, to when used with a graphics tablet. Re- which Adobe might claim the ancestral finements to previous versions include throne, the main tool palettes of com- various ‘productivity enhancements’ 3 Macromedia xRes 3.0 is a very capable image manipulation program which combines some of the best elements of it’s competitors: 1) main tool palette, 2) brush palette, 3) RGB colour picker, 4) object layers palette, 5) comprehensive image information. such as easily re-configurable tools – mode will also increase). Like Live anti-aliasing can be turned off in all tools Picture, xRes permits very large image by one simple step for example. files to be manipulated using machines Perhaps the most notable feature with only moderate amounts of RAM of xRres is it’s superior ability to work (16 – 48MB). Macromedia now market with high resolution images (hence, the vector based illustration program incidentally, the reason for the applica- ‘Freehand 7.02’ as a companion pack- tion’s unusual name). This bitmap edit- age to xRes 3.0, and the two programs ing program operates in two different are now more fully integrated in terms of modes: ‘direct mode’ which is recom- design and purpose. There is no doubt mended for images under 10-20MB in that Macromedia are targeting web de- size containing less than ten independ- velopers with their products. ently-editable objects, and xRes mode In direct mode xRes functions in for images requiring more than 10- essentially the same way as other bitmap 20MB and/or containing more than 10 editors and acts in real time on all the objects (presumably as personal com- component pixels of the image being puters become more powerful the rec- manipulated. Direct mode is the default ommended limit on file size for direct work mode and all of the applications 4 comprehensive range of functions are available. In contrast xRes mode sup- System Requirements: (Windows) ports the rapid manipulation of high Pentium processor, 12MB RAM (18MB recommended) for Windows 95, 16MB resolution files by restricting the neces- RAM (32MB recommended) for Windows sary image processing to the area of the NT3.51, SVGA colour (24-bit colour rec- image visible on the screen at the zoom ommended), 10MB hard disk space level chosen at the time. This ‘selective 500MB minimum free disk space for swap processing’ uses a technique called file, CD-ROM drive ‘tiling’ (technology courtesy of Fauve) (Macintosh) 68040 (12MB RAM mini- to divide large images into smaller sec- mum, 16MB recommended), PowerMac tions. The result is that when you apply (16MB minimum, 20MB recommended), a filter or perform another operations System 7.5, 8-bit colour (24-bit recom- on, say, a 500MB image file it will seem mended), 10MB hard disk space, 500MB to be applied at the same speed as if on minimum free disk space for swap file, CD- ROM drive a 10MB image file because the process- ing required for the whole image is de- Manufacturer: Macromedia Inc., 600 layed until the image is finally rendered. Townsend Street, San Francisoco, CA It comes as no surprise that 94103, USA. Macromedia recommend 500MB spare Website: http://www.macromedia.com/ hard drive space as a swap disk for xRes mode. It should be noted that xRes does not employ a ‘proxy system’ in which PaintShop Pro 3 lower resolution files are used to repre- Brian Boullier sent larger, higher resolution files.