Affordable image editors - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, April, 2000 by Scott May, Susan Glinert

Another solid choice is Hewlett-Packard's PhotoSmart P1100 printer ($399; 800-752-0900, www.hp.com), a sleek cousin of the popular DeskJet 970CSe that looks almost as cool as its 2,400 by 1,200dpi photo output. HP's printer, too, can be connected to your Windows 98 PC via USB or parallel ports or linked directly to a wide range of digital cameras.

Why mess with paper when you can print directly to instant film? That's Polaroid's solution with its ColorShot Digital Color Photo printer ($199; 800-343-5000, www.polaroid.com). It is small and portable, utilizing Polaroid's line of ColorShot and Spectra instant film packs, so there's no toner or ink to spill. The downside is that they can't print directly from a digital camera, nor do they offer a wide range of print sizes.

IMAGE EDITING GLOSSARY

Channel An area in an image.

Cloning The pixel-level application or "painting" of one section of an image onto another.

Color The colors you see on your computer screen are RGB (red, green, blue). To maintain the accuracy of an image's colors in print, you need to convert them to CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black). This process is called color separation.

Color Correction The adjustments that are made to make the colors in an image truer.

Fill The effect of pouring a color, effect, or texture into a closed space within an image.

Filter An effect that changes an original image, such as emboss, stretch, or warp.

Grayscale All shades of gray ranging from black to white.

Image Editor A software package used to correct, enhance, and publish photographic (bitmap or raster-based, as opposed to drawing object or vector-based) images.

Layer An effect or edit added on top of an original image.

Masking Outlining an individual element within an image in order to edit only that element.

Media Electronic versions of real-life brushes, pencils, pens, and so on.

Pixel Each of the tiny dots that makes up an electronic image.

Plug-in Software that gives an image editing program an added feature (often a filter).

Tools Raster tools affect individual pixels, while vector tools affect an entire object.

PRODUCT                  LIST PRICE           MANUFACTURER

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP LE       $95                  Adobe Systems

COREL PHOTO-PAINT 9      $79                  Corel Corp.
DIGITAL CAMERA EDITION

MICROSOFT PHOTODRAW      $109                 Microsoft Corp.
2000 V.2

PAINT SHOP PRO 6.01      $109 ($99 if down-   Jasc Software
                         loaded from Web)

PHOTOSUITE III           $50                  MGI Software Corp.

PICTURE                  $50                  Micrografx Inc.
PUBLISHER 8.0.1

PRODUCT                  PHONE NUMBER   URL

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP LE       800-833-6687   www.adobe.com

COREL PHOTO-PAINT 9      800-772-6735   www.corel.ca
DIGITAL CAMERA EDITION

MICROSOFT PHOTODRAW      800-426-9400   www.microsoft.com
2000 V.2

PAINT SHOP PRO 6.01      800-622-2793   www.jasc.com

PHOTOSUITE III           888-644-7638   www.mgisoft.com

PICTURE                  888-744-1210   www.micrografx.com
PUBLISHER 8.0.1

PRODUCT                  MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP LE       Win 95/98/NT, 16MB RAM, 40MB hard
                         disk space, CD-ROM drive

COREL PHOTO-PAINT 9      Win 95/98/NT, 32MB RAM, 100MB hard
DIGITAL CAMERA EDITION   disk space, CD-ROM drive

MICROSOFT PHOTODRAW      Win 95/98/NT, 32MB, 115MB hard
2000 V.2                 disk space, CD-ROM drive

PAINT SHOP PRO 6.01      Win 95/98/NT, 32MB RAM, 30MB hard
                         disk space, CD-ROM drive

PHOTOSUITE III           Win 95/98/NT, 32MB RAM, 80MB hard
                         disk space, CD-ROM drive

PICTURE                  Win 95/98/NT, 8MB RAM, 65 MB hard
PUBLISHER 8.0.1          disk space, CD-ROM drive