Canvas 7 SE is an Editor's Choice!

July 1, 2000

Canvas 7 is an impressive step up from its predecessor, Canvas 6. Deneba's most highly touted feature in this release is Sprite Effects, tools that allow you to apply any number of filters and effects to vector images, allowing you to create rendered looking images, while still retaining all of the control of a vector image.

Indeed, this is a highly powerful feature set that justifies a new release, but will be sought out by graphic designers who wish for even more control over their final output.

While Adobe continues to increase the size of their product line, Deneba competes valiantly with a single application, that does almost everything that several Adobe products have to do together. Canvas 7 is your Illustrator, it is your Photoshop, it is your PageMaker. Throw in some website creation tools, it Sprite Effects set, and you'll be expecting this all in one marvel to take out the trash and clean the dishes. With this newest solution to your graphic and design needs, you'll find there's very little you can't do.

There are many different features that mark Canvas 7 as a worthy successor of Canvas 6. Wizards, useful for starting up the mundane and typical design projects have been a long time coming to Canvas, but finally, with Canvas 7, wizards to help you create a web page, graphic, illustration, or publication, help you set up fast so you can get down to the real grit, quicker.

A new web graphic exporter is a powerful feature, also long lacking in the Canvas series until now. With the new JPEG/GIF exporter, you can now easily export your images to the web, optimizing to standard web palettes and reducing size or quality to fit your current web project just right. To anyone who used Canvas 6 for graphic exporting to the web, the long excruciating process of exporting web ready images is now a breeze by any comparison.

Sprite effects are Canvas 7's newest and greatest feature set, allowing you to apply filters normally reserved for bitmapped images to any of your vector images. The power of these tools has to be experienced to be appreciated in full. Changing your image has never been easier, as now with each sprite effect you apply, you can delete it should the result not please you, or simply move the effect elsewhere in the sprite layers hierarchy. This ability to change an image so rapidly, and try out so many variations is yet to be matched in any other program. Be forewarned however, that many Sprite Layers applied to a vector object will quickly slow down your redraw rate, as the ability to have absolute control over your vectored image comes with a price.

However my most favorite feature, as well as the one least advertised, is its speed and stability. To test it out, I threw some heavy, RAM eating documents I had previously made in Canvas 6. These documents had a reputation of slow screen redraws, painful loading times, and a tendency to bring Canvas 6 along with my system to its knees. No longer, Canvas 7 has been significantly optimized, and manages large documents much better then its predecessor. Document load times and screen load times are often cut in half. The faster redraw rate is a combination of better optimization of the application, as well as a local redraw feature, versus the painful global redraw of Canvas 6. When previously you made a little change, the whole document would redraw, not a pleasant experience when you're pushing a 100MB+ document around. Now with local redraw, only the modified area is redrawn, cutting down on your idle time, and making you 700% more productive.

More responsive paint tools are now part of the Canvas package, and combined with Sprite Effects, make Canvas a versatile powerful program that suitably responds to your graphic needs. Canvas has always been strongly tied to the print industry, and always seemed to me to be a glorified PageMaker which was trying to add other features to expand its appeal. Canvas 7 I'm pleased to say, breaks that mold, and now models itself truly as a robust, all round powerful graphics and document program.

Canvas 7's only deficiency at all is its documentation. Canvas 7 Standard Edition ships with a measly 92 page "Getting Started Guide." Although Standard Edition is targeted for the entry level graphic and document user, the need to inform properly must outweigh the potential to intimidate. There is a user's guide upon the Canvas 7 CD in PDF format, but that's a ridiculous way of delivering information, and it will not be printed out by entry level users who just wish to get something done.

And this is a serious problem. Canvas 7 Standard Edition packs a ton of features for the sub $100 price range, but all these features are not documented in any depth, relying solely on a user's willingness to explore to utilize all the power that Standard Edition supplies.

Targeted for entry level users, Canvas 7 Standard Edition packs a ton of features in for an unbelievably low price, and such users will find the feature set unbelievably powerful, and full of depth. From school projects, to small business, Canvas 7 is the all round, incredibly versatile program that will handle almost all your desktop publishing needs. You just might want to look for some good websites to help you explore the power you strapped into your computer.

Box Contents

• Canvas Installer + Fonts CD
• Clip Art Collection CD
• Getting Started Guide and Font Library

Canvas 7 SE, For Windows and Macintosh.

Deneba Software
1150 NW 72nd Avenue
Miami, FL 33126
Executive Tower 1
Penthouse Floor
Phone: (305) 596-5644
Fax: (305) 273-9069 
Website: www.deneba.com

Strengths:

• Robust
• Sprite Effects allow for unprecedented power over vector images
• Improved and optimized application
• Fast redraws and load times
• Easy exportation of web ready content
• affordability
• easy to use wizards, which get you working faster.

Weaknesses:

• Poor printed documentation means you'll have to explore all this power on your own.

If you're an entry level user, strongly consider Canvas 7 as an essential part of your day to day toolset. The price to feature ratio can't be beat, the power is amazing for the price. Just be prepared to go surfing the net for answers to questions if you start taking advantage of the more in depth features of Canvas 7.

System Requirements

 

Windows Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 or later 32 MB Ram Minimum 80 MB hard drive space 16 bit color or higher 800*600 or higher screen resolution Pentium class processor

Macintosh Mac OS 8.5 or later 32 MB Ram to Canvas 80 MB hard drive space 800*600 or higher screen resolution 16 bit color or higher PowerPC Processor

Copyright 2000, Ian Mankowski, All Rights Reserved