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As you can see, I now have a clean copy of the original image that can be used on the CD. It is just a pity that I can't let you listen to it as well. The whole image now needs to be scaled down as it is bigger than an A4 page, but that is no problem with a vector program.

I used Zoner Draw 4 to make a poster for a friend and that required scaling a scanned photograph to the size of an A4 page. The result can be seen here. If I had tried to stretch the photo to this size in Photoshop you would see the pixellation.

 
A poster with stretched photo scan

This image can now be scaled up to A3 with no loss of clarity. Vector drawing programs should be used in conjunction with a pixel based photographic program as it will not perform all the tasks asked of one of these, although Zoner Draw 4 gives support to enable a certain amount of image manipulation contained within the program.

Zoner Draw 4 has many import filters and can take Adobe Illustrator files, CorelDraw, Kodak and many more, as well as standard JPEG and GIF files.

When bringing new images into a Zoner Draw 4 workspace, you need to use File > Import, then create a space using the mouse. You can't just open a file unless it has already been made in Zoner Draw. Most of these programs work in a similar fashion.

You can work on bitmapped images in Zoner Draw 4. They can be cropped when importing by invoking the ZViewer tool by right clicking and selecting it. Once the cropping has been done then carry on importing.

Backgrounds can be removed from bitmaps by selecting and using the bitmap function from the toolbar. This is a very useful feature.

If you want to make cards (business or other), then Zoner Draw 4 is perfect. There are a couple of ways to do this, one is to follow the instructions that are to be found on the Web site <http://www.zoner.com> and the other is to create a table consisting of the required number of shapes and insert your text and images into them.

Download the tutorials from the site and follow the instructions to learn how to use the many powerful features of this program. I would strongly recommend learning the keyboard shortcuts to make your work go easier. Once you have set your gallery fills, etc. you can just drag and drop them into place.

Right clicking on a image when using the import function will bring up a very useful image viewing program called Zoner Media Explorer 4. This enables you to see thumbnails of all images in a folder. You can make a slideshow of the files in each folder too.

There are many more features that will require much more investigation. The bottom line is that this is a very good program.

Zoner Draw 4 is very good and without a learning curve as steep as some programs. It seems capable of doing whatever is required of it. The help is good and the tutorials easy to follow. It has many of the features of the top vector draw programs, and without the high price tag. It will suit most users and performs most tasks well and easily.

--By Tim Skyrme