PhotoImpact 7.0

Fr. Jacob Myers

February 28, 2002

It is always nice to see a good program improve itself, especially when I have reviewed two or three earlier versions of PhotoImpact. I especially like the read that a continuously improving program has on the graphics market...what Ulead has felt is the direction of graphics design. I must say that I like their read...which to me is to put the emphasis on both Web Graphics and digital photography, making the editing of digital photos easier and much more thorough. Like so many digital photographers, it is very nice to have a program make the editing of our photos an easier process. For example, let us consider the new "Beautify Skin effect" in version 7.0. Below you have a recent baptism of a little baby. What better choice to

Note below that when I click on the Beautify Skin Filter, I have some preset choices of complexion including heavy tan, pale, darken, lighten, and sunburn. And with each choice, I have a one through 10 degree of intensity. I can also zoom in in the Preview mode below to see

It is well worth taking this all the way, because the pale look of the initial photo with the babies skin is now quite enhanced with very little effort. For me the program would be worth it for this one filter alone.

Now lets look at the Lens Distortion Effect. On the left you can see a nice picture of the man with the donut. With the lens distortion you can completely change the perspective to where in the case I chose, to make the donut the real centerpiece. The picture below is a normal picture of a man, woman and a donut. With the Lens Disortion Filter, the perspective on the picture is to place the man in front with the woman behind him longly looking at the donut, completely changing the theme of the picture. The filter is completely flexible and the dual view allows for you to see changes and continue to change perspective until you achieve a desired effect as now the donut looks like it is something the woman is contemplating eating rather than something held up as a trophy:

With the new Motion Blur filter, you take the scene of the young girl in the snow and give it motion and a different perspective. As you can see below, there are 9 choices of motion from a very blurred filter to a filter that allows the girl to stand in the center of motion around her:

Below I have circled the new easy adjustments that can be made to contrast, brightness, and color. A dark picture in the snow was chosen so you can see how quickly and easily the picture can be improved:

With just a few clicks the picture now looks like this:

Increased EasyPalette customization is also an addition to PhotoImpact 7.0. I am always thrilled with the use of EasyPalette in general and each addition to this very useful supplement is welcomed. With EasyPalette you can visually see and immediately use in your photos frames, lighting, special effects, web tools, and many readily available graphips that truly enhance a photo when used sparingly and many other things that reside on the side of the program and are instantly available. Just scroll down the next 4 graphics to see some of the choices you have with this program:

Also new in the program is an automatic enhancing of a photo. There are improvements to Web production, web management, and many new time saving tools as well. I tell you this folks, this program is well worth having, even if you have Photoshop or another high end program, many times you have photos that need quick editing and PhotoImpact 7.0 is so easy to use and so thorough in its inclusion of Web and Editing tools that I would say that you can not go wrong with owning this program. I highly recommend it!!!

System Requirements

      Box Version:

• Intel Pentium compatible processors.

• Microsoft Windows 98, NT 4.0, 2000, Me and XP.

• 64MB of RAM.

• 350MB of available hard drive space.

• CD-ROM drive.

• True Color or HiColor display adapter and monitor.

• Windows compatible pointing device.

• WinTab compatible pressure-sensitive digitizer (optional)

Download Version:

• Intel Pentium compatible processors.

• Microsoft Windows 98, NT 4.0, 2000, Me and XP.

• 64MB of RAM.

• 73MB of available hard drive space.

• CD-ROM drive.

• True Color or HiColor display adapter and monitor.

• Windows compatible pointing device.

• WinTab compatible pressure-sensitive digitizer (optional).

Copyright 2000, Fr. Jacob Myers, All Rights Reserved