Reviews of Graphics Software and Software Books

Learn about Wacom Inkling, a digital sketch pen which allows you to create drawings on standard paper or in a sketchbook, and later transfer your sketches to a computer for further refinement.

Corel Quicksort is a well-presented and effective free tool for viewing, sorting and sharing pictures, for both Windows and OS X users.

Learn about the Wacom Bamboo line of consumer-level graphics tablets including the Bamboo Connect, Bamboo Capture, and Bamboo Create.

HDR Darkroom Pro, is a High Dynamic range app for Mac OS X available from the Apple App Store.

Photoshop Elements 10 is the latest version of Adobe's photo-editing software for photo hobbyists. Learn about the new features in version 10 including visual searches, text on a path, and more.

Photo Effect Studio is an inexpensive creative photo editor for Mac, which can help you easily adding interesting effects to your digital photos.

Learn about the features of Corel PaintShop Pro, a powerful photo editor that is affordable without being overly simplistic or limiting.

Learn about the features of Corel PaintShop Pro, a powerful photo editor that is affordable without being overly simplistic or limiting.

If your talents lean toward the artistic, Corel Painter is a must-have tool for maximum creative expression in a digital environment. With Painter you can mimic traditional painting and drawing with digital chalk, pastels, watercolors, oils, crayons, pencil, felt pens, ink, and more.

User reviews for Corel Painter creative art studio software for Windows and Macintosh.

FX Photo Studio Pro is a fun application for Apple Mac OS X users who want to add creative effects to their digital photos.

FX Photo Studio HD is an iPad app for applying hundreds of special effects and useful adjustments to your photos.

PiRAWnha is a raw image processing app for the iPad. It can open raw camera files and apply various adjustments and then save the processed photos to a number of common image file formats.

The Works is free special effects plugin collection of eight filters offered by Cybia software. These filters were born in the '90s and can be ideal for adding a retro feel to your photos, though they can also be used to produce some very contemporary results.

Fotomatic is a free set of eight filters to produce photography effects to mimic vintage film.

Pixelmator is an attractive image editor for Apple Mac OS X. Pixelmator may not be the best option for every user, but it's powerful feature set will certainly keep many image editor users perfectly happy.

Snapseed from Nik Software is an impressive photo editing app for iPad, which provides a number of useful image adjustments and high-quality photography effects.

ArtRage is a creative iPad app which offers a number of painting and drawing tools with adjustable settings, and flexible canvas options for creating art work. The user interface is well-designed and does not get in the way of creativity.

If you enjoy using the many art apps available for the iPad, you may have considered getting a stylus or "pen" to make your iPad sketching, drawing, and painting more precise and comfortable. Here's a collection of reviews for iPad and other touch screen stylus pens and brushes and some advice on what to consider when choosing a stylus.

Adobe Ideas is a free vector-based digital sketchbook app for iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch) offering a simple user interface designed for quickly sketching out ideas and concepts on-the-go.

Photoshop Elements is Adobe's photo-editing software for photo hobbyists. Photoshop Elements includes a full-featured photo editor, an integrated photo organizer, project layout templates, artwork and themes, and a number of sharing options.

Through a series of modules, Lightroom helps photographers manage, develop, and present their photos. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom was developed to meet the needs of professional photographers and serious amateurs, and Adobe has done very well in this regard.

Lightroom is Adobe's digital darkroom software for professional and serious amateur photographers. Read user reviews of this digital darkroom software, or share your own experience with Adobe Lightroom by writing a review.

"Is it worth getting a Pogo Stylus for drawing and painting on the iPhone or iPod touch? I posed this question on Twitter some time ago, and got no replies. So I decided to order one and find out for myself."

Hornil StylePix is a free image editor with a modern and clear user interface with a strong range of tools and features for beginner to intermediate users.

Corel PaintShop Photo Pro, also known simply as PaintShop, is a powerful yet affordable Windows image editor for digital photo editing and adjustment, web graphics, business graphics, digital scrapbooking, and more. Read user reviews of this photo editing software, or share your own experience with Corel PaintShop Photo Pro by writing...See submissions

Review of "The Book of Inkscape: The Definitive Guide to the Free Graphics Editor" by Dmitry Kirsanov. The Book of Inkscape is a resource for all Inkscape users, whether they have never used the application before or have been using the editor for a while and want to expand their knowledge to ensure that they are making the most of the power that Inkscape offers them.

Photoshop Elements is Adobe's photo-editing software for amateur photographers, digital imaging enthusiasts, and small business users. Read user reviews of this photo editing software, or share your own experience with Adobe Photoshop Elements by writing a review. See submissions See submissions See submissions See submissions See......See submissions

For the ultimate in graphics power and flexibility, Photoshop can't be beat. Photoshop offers more non-destructive ways of working than any other photo editor, and Adobe is always adding enhancements to help get the job done faster and with less frustration.

The GIMP is one of the most popular free photo editors available, but it is not without some controversy. Some feel it a powerful alternative to Photoshop, while others are bothered by its less-than-traditional user interface, and open-source status.See submissions

Corel Digital Studio 2010 was introduced in September 2009 as a new product to help the family photographer work more easily with their photos and video clips. Read user reviews of this digital photo software suite, or share your own experience with Corel Digital Studio 2010 by writing a review.

Chris Price is an About Graphics Software contributing reviewer and writer for Adobe Photoshop plugins and supplemental software.

With ten nature filters and countless customization options, Eye Candy 5: Nature gives you an infinite variety of particle effects and natural phenomena to add to your projects. Includes special effects filters for generating coronas, fire, water effects (drips, drops, icicles, ripples), snow, smoke, rust, blurs, and lighting effects.

Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 offers easy-to-use tools with an abundance of creative effects and fun designs for sharing and enjoying your photos. Beginners and casual home users who want to touch up photos, experiment with effects, and print creative projects will find a great deal of value in Digital Image Suite 2006.

Magix PhotoStory on CD & DVD 2004 allows you to create entertaining photo slide shows that can be played on your PC or your DVD player. I found the software a bit difficult to grasp at first, but after spending some time with the documentation, I got up to speed relatively quickly and was impressed by its powerful features.

Total Training provides high-quality, video-based training on CD and DVD for many of Adobe's software programs. Each video set is packaged nicely with a quick reference guide and a CD of files that users can work with as they watch.

ArtRage is an inexpensive, fun, and easy-to-learn program for experimenting with digital art in Windows, Tablet PC or Mac OS. The user interface is absolutely gorgeous and designed for ultimate ease of use. Children and adults alike will have a ton of fun painting and drawing with art tools that act and interact just like real-world paint, pens, pencils, crayons, and even glitter!

Alien Skin Blow Up can enlarge your images in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements with better results and with more functionality than competing products. The interface is straightforward and easy to use, but you might have a hard time justifying the cost against the printed results unless you do a large volume of extreme enlargements.

The new Bamboo Fun tablet from Wacom is the successor to the Graphire4 series of consumer level pen tablets. Bamboo Fun has an updated look, a wide-format active area, a new textured feel to the tablet surface, and a finger-sensitive touch ring for zooming and scrolling. Unlike the Bamboo standard tablet, Bamboo Fun comes with a mouse and a...

SnagIt is one of the most comprehensive and powerful screen capture utilities available for Windows, offering advanced features and extra tools for organizing, simplifying, and editing screen captures. If you produce Windows screen shots on a regular basis, SnagIt is a must-have tool.

Wacom is the leading graphics tablet maker, and Bamboo is the latest consumer-level tablet in the Wacom product line-up. Bamboo is intended to be used with the built-in pen features of Windows Vista, Microsoft Office, and Mac OS X for marking up documents, jotting notes, and writing your signature.

Corel Painter Essentials is a simplified, home-user version of Corel Painter professional-level art software. It's designed to help beginners or non-artists create digital art and turn photos into art work. Whether you want to create photo art automatically or paint and draw unique designs on your own, Painter Essentials offers a well rounded set of tools for exploring digital art.

Alien Skin Snap Art is a collection of ten filters that can give your photos the artistic styling of colored pencil, Impasto, Pointillism, pen and ink, pencil sketch, pastels, comics, watercolor, oil painting, and pop art.

Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 offers easy-to-use tools with an abundance of creative effects and fun designs for sharing and enjoying your photos. Beginners and casual home users who want to touch up photos, experiment with effects, and print creative projects will find a great deal of value in Digital Image Suite 2006.

The DigiPro drawing tablet is an inexpensive, yet capable, pressure-sensitive pen tablet for budget conscious users.

VueScan scanning software adds advanced features and superior control to more than 400 scanners. VueScan is especially useful for scanning slides and negatives, fine-tuning the color in your scans, and for batch scanning of multiple photos.

The Logitech NuLOOQ navigator is a unique productivity-enhancing control device for anyone who works with creative software on a regular basis. It works alongside your keyboard and mouse, trackpad, or graphics tablet while you control it with your other hand.

Alien Skin Exposure is a plug-in designed to accurately simulate the look and feel of film in your digital photos. Exposure comes with a number of presets to recreate the appearance of Velvia, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, GAF 500, TRI-X, Ilford, and many other film types. It also offers controls for tweaking the color, tone, focus and grain of your photos.

PhotoImpact allows beginners to quickly achieve professional-looking results, while providing advanced features so users won't feel limited as they gain experience. With each new release, PhotoImpact includes more new features to keep it in line with the competition.

The CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is a value leader, providing capable, professional tools for just about any graphics task. The Suite includes CorelDRAW for vector-based drawing and page layout, and PHOTO-PAINT for image editing and photo retouching. Several supporting utilities also come in the box. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is probably the best version yet.

PicaJet Free Edition 2.5 is a powerful organizer for your digital photos. Its printing and sharing options are quite limited, but for organizing, browsing, and light editing of your digital photos it is very impressive.

Corel Snapfire is free digital photo software to help you organize, enhance, and share your pictures and video clips.

ArtMasterPro lets you turn your digital photos into works of art with 15 interactive ArtWizards or full manual control. ArtMasterPro breaks your photo down into a number of simplified sources, which can be blended into an artistic rendering using ArtWizards or manual painting mode.

Xara Xtreme for Windows is a fast yet powerful vector-based drawing and illustration program, suitable for Web graphics, illustration, technical drawing, animation, cartooning, and compositing.

ArtMaster helps you turn your digital photos into works of art with 7 interactive ArtWizards. ArtMaster breaks your photo down into a number of simplified sources, then the ArtWizards blend these sources into a pleasing picture every time.

Intuos3 is the third generation of Wacom's professional line of graphics tablets. Intuos3 supports tilt control and 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, the highest sensitivity of any graphics tablet available today (double that of Intuos2). Intuos3 comes in 4x5, 6x8, 6x11, and 9x12 sizes.

Graphire4 includes a pressure-sensitive pen, ambidextrous and cordless mouse, and a bundle of photo editing, creative, and digital-inking software. Graphire4 comes in two sizes - 4x5 or 6x8, and in three color choices - silver, white, or metallic blue.

With ten special effects filters and countless customization options, Eye Candy 5: Impact gives you an infinite variety of visual effects to add to your projects. Includes special effects filters for generating metal surfaces, bevels, glass, plastic, metallics, chrome, 3D extrusions, light rays, glows, motion trails, shadows, reflections, stars, gears, and other shapes.

With ten nature filters and countless customization options, Eye Candy 5: Nature gives you an infinite variety of particle effects and natural phenomena to add to your projects. Includes special effects filters for generating coronas, fire, water effects (drips, drops, icicles, ripples), snow, smoke, rust, blurs, and lighting effects.

Eye Candy 5: Textures is the next generation of special effects plug-in filters from Alien Skin. With ten texture filters and countless customization options, Eye Candy 5: Textures gives you an infinite variety of unique, seamless textures for your projects.

virtualPhotographer is a fun and easy plug-in that helps you add drama and artistic effects to your photos. The free software lets you experiment with a wide variety of color and black & white photographic effects by manipulating color, film speed, film type, and effects.

MaxiVista provides an inexpensive and hassle-free way to extend your desktop onto the monitor of another computer on your network such as a laptop or tablet PC that's not always being used. MaxiVista can also clone screen content to a second display for demonstration or training purposes, and can even work across long distances in a wireless LAN environment.

Paint Shop Pro Studio is a digital photo editor for novice- to intermediate-level digital camera users who want to organize, enhance, restore, and share digital photos. A somewhat stripped-down version of Paint Shop Pro, Studio is not as easy to learn as it should be to compete in this category.

Wink is a free tool for creating animated tutorials and software demonstrations.

AV Bros. Puzzle Pro 2.0 offers many customizable options for adding jigsaw puzzle effects to your photos and images.

AV Bros. Page Curl 2.0 offers many customizable options for adding page curl and fold effects to your photos and images.

Total Training provides high-quality, video-based training on CD and DVD for many of Adobe's software programs. Each video set is packaged nicely with a quick reference guide and a CD of files that users can work with as they watch.

Alias Sketchbook Pro is an innovative freehand drawing and painting program designed specifically for Tablet PC and graphics tablet users on Windows and Macintosh. If you've been frustrated or overwhelmed by the complexity of other artistic software, Sketchbook Pro is a great way to sketch out ideas, annotate images, and explore computer-based drawing.

Picasa is free photo management software that scans your computer for picture files and automatically organizes them into albums, then allows you to edit and share them.

Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album 5 allows you to import, organize, enhance, and share your digital photos. The printing and sharing features are exceptional, but there are better solutions for editing and organizing your photo collection.

StudioLine Photo 2 takes an unusual approach to digital photo management and editing. Although the non-standard interface increases the learning curve somewhat, its innovative editing and annotation tools make it worth investigating.

PhotoShow offers quick and easy way to make musical photo slide shows and Video CDs. This software includes some fun extras like frames, animated clip art, and photo effects.

ProShow Gold allows you to create simple to elaborate digital photo slide shows for PC and TV playback. The software is highly customizable, with hundreds of transition effects, many audio options, the popular "Ken Burns" motion effects, and a variety of output formats.

Magix PhotoStory on CD & DVD 2004 allows you to create entertaining photo slide shows that can be played on your PC or your DVD player. I found the software a bit difficult to grasp at first, but after spending some time with the documentation, I got up to speed relatively quickly and was impressed by its powerful features.

Canvas offers a unified creative environment for intermediate to advanced graphics software users on the Macintosh or Windows platform. This all-in-one graphics suite is an exceptional value.

With straightforward language, Dave Huss demonstrates practical techniques for improving your photos with Photoshop Elements. His casual writing style and sense of humor make you want to keep reading and learning.

Anyone will be able to master professional techniques for retouching, restoring, and enhancing both new and old photos by following the step-by-step direction of this skilled Photoshop instructor.

Digital art pioneer Bert Monroy reveals his techniques for photo-realistic digital painting in Photoshop 7. Not only is this a book that teaches in a comfortable, reassuring way, the amazing illustrations are sure to motivate and inspire you as well.

This book shows you how to achieve the most requested digital photography techniques and effects used by the pros, but falls a bit short in challenging readers to a deeper understanding of what they are doing.

JAlbum is a free Web photo album and slide show generator that is easy to use, yet incredibly versatile. New users can generate an album in three easy steps, and power users will appreciate the scripting capabilities, image filters, and integrated FTP. It's also multi-platform compatible and localized for several languages.

JPEGCrops is free software to help you quickly rotate and crop multiple photos to standard photo sizes without loss of quality.

FaceFilter is designed to quickly transform facial expressions in a number of ways--from confident and sexy to mean, sad, sleepy, or tender. It can even do silly, comic effects, but it's most useful for creating a subtle change to the overall mood of an image.

Speed and looks are not the strong point of ThumbsPlus, but if you want extensive cataloging features, multi-criteria file search, powerful batch processing, and integrated image enhancement--and you don't mind spending time navigating dialogs and entering database information--ThumbsPlus would make an excellent choice.

Extensis pxl SmartScale uses 'PixelLive' advanced technology to resample images up to 1600%. The plug-in does a better job of image upsizing than Photoshop alone and it's easier to use than similar products, but I'm still not sure its worth the price.

Adobe Photoshop Album provides a fast, easy way for digital photo collectors to organize, fix, share, and archive pictures without a lot of involvement. The software is easy to learn and fulfills the most essential needs of amateur photo collectors.

PhotoArtMaster Gold is one-of-a-kind software to help you transform your ordinary photographs into something you can be proud to frame and put on display.

Microsoft's Digital Image Suite 9 and Digital Image Pro 9 are best suited to users who want simplified tools for image enhancement as well as a nice variety of professional-looking designs which can be personalized and produced without a lot of fuss.

With brief but informative text instruction and lots of clear, easy-to-follow visuals, Photoshop Elements 2 Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks will show you how to save time, be more productive, and do more cool stuff in Photoshop Elements 2.

Photoshop 7 Savvy is a good choice both for beginning and intermediate users of Photoshop who want a broad view of the program including many of the new features in Photoshop 7. The instruction is clear, and the nine hands-on tutorials help you put what you've read into practice.

Photoshop 7 Learning Studio is basically Photoshop 7 Savvy, the book, put into a browser-based format with demonstrative videos, narration, and a search engine added. Unless you prefer reading on-screen or you really need the search and demo features, just get the book.

Easy Thumbnails is a handy free tool to have around for more than just generating thumbnails. It can also enlarge images, adjust color, rename files, and quickly show a folder of images as a Web page.

The program was designed to help you pass the Adobe Certified Expert exam for Photoshop. It is laid out in a similar style to the actual Adobe exam and contains 290 questions and answers plus references to help you expand your knowledge. A demo version is available for download. Full version can be purchased for $49 USD.

The program was designed to help you pass the Adobe Certified Expert exam for Illustrator. It is laid out in a similar style to the actual Adobe exam and contains 250 questions and answers plus references to help you expand your knowledge. A demo version is available for download. Full version can be purchased for $40 USD.

FotoSlate is the first photo printing program I've found that provides complete and total control over every aspect of your printed photo layouts. It's quick, easy, and extremely flexible.

Alien Skin's Eye Candy is one of the most popular graphics software plug-in filter collections of all time. See examples of all 23 special effects included in the Eye Candy 4000 suite.

Xenofex 2 is another fabulous special effects plugin collection from the effects masters and plug-in pioneers at Alien Skin. Xenofex 2 offers 14 customizable filters, including 10 updated classics and 4 new effects. See them all in the Xenofex gallery.

The IMatch image management database for Windows offers seriously powerful image management that rivals high-end image database software at a fraction of the price.

IrfanView 32 is a small and speedy free image viewer and thumbnail browser for Windows.

Photodex CompuPic Pro is a fast and powerful thumbnail image browser and viewer for Windows with lots of extras.

Photodex ProShow allows you to create simple to elaborate digital photo slide shows for PC or TV playback. It's highly customizable, with hundreds of transition effects, many audio options, and a variety of output formats.

Create, share and experience multimedia shows using your own photos and music. Choose photos, a soundtrack, transitions and effects and then drag and drop animated clip art and captions to create PhotoShows which can then be shared online, burned to CD-ROM, used as a screen saver, or published to a Web site.

Easily turn digital photos into paintings and stylized artwork with this collection of 12 plug-in filters from Jasc Software.

XnView is a fast and free image viewer and converter with support for a staggering number of file formats (over 400), operating systems, and languages. Features for resizing, adjusting, adding effects, slide show display, batch conversion, screen capture, printing, drag & drop, and more. Free for non-commercial use.

Artify from Kodama Studios is a simple and easy-to-use iPad app for applying impressionist painting effects to your photos. Learn more about Artify in this hands-on app review.

PhotoRaw is a simple yet effective raw image viewer and converter for iOS. PhotoRAW is a universal iOS app which allows you to view and develop raw camera files by adjusting exposure, brightness and contrast, then export the processed file.