Number 291 - August 2007

PhotoImpact--Easy Photo Editing
by Stephen Steffler, Big Blue and Cousins: The Greater Victoria PC Users' Association, June 2007
After several years as a club member, and watching demos on photo editing, organizing, and retouching I was always amazed at how often people asked "how do I do this or that?" with the popular photo-editing software the club was using. I have always been a fan of Ulead PhotoImpact (now belonging to Corel), and found it to be both easy to use and extremely powerful. So when John Hackett asked one of those "how to" questions, I said, let me show you some different software and an easier way to do that. John was very impressed and suggested I do a demonstration for one of the Topical SIGs.    I did the demonstration and showed some of the key features of the software; which included a typical red-eye removal, the touch up tool, the auto white balance, and quick fix exposure adjustments. I also demonstrated making a working web page in five minutes directly from within the program. The features that most impressed people were the ones that other software costing hundred of dollars do not have yet! One feature is an extremely simple click and fix for details. PhotoImpact calls this HDR (High Dynamic Range) which combines multiple photos for maximum detail and brilliant contrast, with the simple click of a button. Another easy fix is to remove people or moving objects from photos without masking or editing, This feature, called SmartRemove, identifies differences in photos and removes them. This is very useful if you are taking photos of fixed objects like sculptures, architecture or exhibits but people keep walking in front of the object you are trying to photograph.    I demonstrated retouching a very damaged photo. I took estimates from the crowd, for how long it would take to repair the image--most people suggested hours to fix it. I proceeded to repair about one quarter of it in 6-8 minutes. The speed of retouching has to do with your skill for sure, but it also has to do with the speed of tool selection and settings, and PhotoImpact does this with speed and with an amazingly intuitive interface. It is easy to switch between tools and settings in a second or less, giving you much more focus and speed on the job at hand, and less time searching for tools and opening panels.    One of the other significant advantages of using PhotoImpact over the famous photo-editing program, is using objects rather than layers. Yes, you can use layers, but you do not have to use	them. Objects are like cut-out layers that allow you to select any floating item on the page without ever opening a layer. This makes editing complex composite photos, layering images and adding effects extremely fast.    If you need text to build projects like posters, menus, greeting cards etc ... well PhotoImpact is a dream! You can directly edit almost anything you can imagine with text, in one or two clicks. You can resize, change font, change colour, twist, warp, outline, add a drop shadow, or flames and make it all 3D with editable light, reflections, transparency, textures and multilevel extrusions with the click of a mouse. You can also merge objects to create a welded effect where items look like they are cut out or cast in a mold as one object and you can rotate these objects in 3D.    For those of you who love to explore and create something completely different, you can even create painted illustrations and logos with the vector and paint tools. There are also templates for labels, calendars, creating cards, CD and DVD labels, packaging sheet prints, banners and more. A lot of the features, filters and effects are built in presets, with pop up adjustments if you want to fine tune the effect. The main photo edit screen also has built in animation effects which can be saved as .gif animations or sequence bitmaps that can be imported into your favorite video software.    Add to this, the bonus software of gif animator (360 panoramic editor) and photo album/organizer that will collect, sort, copy and move text, sound and video files as well as photos and you have an amazing software value.    You can download the trial version for free at or come to the club and test drive the full features of the licensed copy. We are beginning classes on how to get the most out of this software starting June 6, 2007. Spaces are limited and we have 35 members who have already bought the software!    Copyright (C) 1990-2007 by Big Blue and Cousins: The Greater Victoria Personal Computer Users' Association. www.bbc.org
Number 291 - August 2007