Product Review: Page (1) of 2 - 07/22/06

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ACDSystems offers imaging applications for both professionals and consumers alike. With the popularity of digital cameras and other devices that capture images, the digital image editing market is saturated with editing tools. Even Microsoft will get into the fray with its Windows Photo Gallery when the company's Vista operating system ships.

ACDSystems has recently released version 4.0 of its Photo Editor. The application, which is the company's entry level product (ACDSee 8 and ACDSee Pro being the other two imaging tools) is targeted at consumer and SoHo types, and is robust enough to satisfy most anyone who wants to get creative with images.

Main interface. Common tools are located cross the top. How To's are located to the right.

The application largely follows a step by step approach to teach you how to get good results with the new How-To's. While the application has a competent toolset for image editing manually, the How-To's are focused at those who prefer instruction. Within the scope of this first look, we'll take a look at some of the features to the application.

How -To palette

How To's are tutorials that show you how to perform a specific task using Photo Editor. The How To's come in three categories, the Basics, Photo Fix, and Creative Ease. Basics offers a variety of tutorials, including creating a blank work area, adding text to a photo, opening a photo, picking colors, placing an image, exporting photos to Microsoft Office, adding shapes to a photo, rotating objects, photos or the work area, aligning objects, and more. The core tools of Photo Editor are covered here to give you a feel on how to use them and what you can use the for. Photo Fix includes instructions on how to fix red eye, cropping photos, brightening or darkening a photo, removing a color tint, removing graininess from a photo, straightening a photo, and repairing a photo.

How-To

Creative Ease features such How-to's as applying a vignette, antiquing a photo, creating a wallet strip, creating wrapping paper, creating a vintage portrait, creating a wine label, and more.  When you select a How-to, Photo Editor displays a brief paragraph of what that How-to is used for and how it may differ from other How-to's. It also may discuss the attributes of the particular How-to before you push the Start button to get into it. Once you push the start button, the instruction to complete the task are displayed next to the How-to palette, complete with text instructions and screenshots of where to go in the workspace to complete the How-to task. After you've completed the specific instructions in the first pane, click next to proceed to the rest of the How-to instructions. Also, at any time you can revert back to the previous How-to window if you don't do it correctly or want to read the instructions again.

Variations

Eight variation views.

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