Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 version 2: Review

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Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 version 2

Vector/Raster 2D Graphics Processing with Extensive Office 2000 Integration

Reviewed by: Blake Boyer

PhotoDraw's ability to combine the flexibility of vectors and the creativity of raster images is impressive. Microsoft's release of version 2 brings PhotoDraw firmly into the Office fold by stressing usability, integration and productivity.
	Version 2 includes an installer identical to that used in Office 2000 along with other common features such as menus that display the most recently used commands and consistent Help files. This version feels far more responsive, compared to version 1 which shipped with Office 2000 Premium . Microsoft claims that on a system with at least 64 MB of RAM, version 2 will generally be about 25 percent faster than version 1. In fact, the improvements to the most required tools, such as the photo-editing and paint brushes, have been made up to 70 percent faster.
PhotoDraw prides itself on being able to work with source images from multiple sources and the number of formats it supports has been extended to include market-leading Corel Draw 8 CDR and Photoshop 5 PSD files. Also added is the new AutoScan wizard that allows you to scan images with the appropriate image size and resolution, and improved digital camera support. PhotoDraw’s own dedicated content has also been extended and, with new support for the shared Office Clip Gallery, provide access to over 20,000 bundled images.

PhotoDraw 2000 offers theme-based templates.

PhotoDraw 2000 offers theme-based templates.

New templates include dedicated options for PowerPoint backgrounds and Web design elements, and the introduction of themes templates. These are divided into a range of categories such as Logos and Web Banners and within each category you are provided with thirteen design-based options, such as Artsy, Capsule, Citrus and Sumi. Each of these automatically picks up the look and feel of existing themes in FrontPage and PowerPoint enabling you to maintain a consistent house style across your work.

The new PhotoDraw also enables you to maintain design consistency as you work. The Fill visual menu now provides a new Color Scheme option where you can choose any of the color schemes available in any other of the 2000 apps. They are not intelligent as they are in Publisher so you can’t instantly update the overall look of a design just by changing your scheme. Additionally , instead of just applying a flat color you can also take advantage of the Fill menus Theme Texture option to fill an object with a bitmap-based texture designed to complement the overall design. Using the Edge menu you can even apply around a hundred specially designed Theme Brushes as object outlines.

PhotoDraw's impressive range of specially brushes.

Theme Brushes extends PhotoDraw's impressive range of specially brushes.

These same Theme Brushes are also now available as options from the Draw/Paint menu to effectively provide a new set of artistic tools. Using a Themes Brush with the Draw tool is particularly impressive as it enables you to interactively draw a photo-realistic border with, for example, the Radius theme’s interlocking chain-style option. What makes PhotoDraw unique, however, is that you can then retrospectively change your stroke’s width and transparency and even edit its nodes to completely change its shape.

One of PhotoDraw’s biggest strengths is it stylizing capabilities which contains a number of arresting effects that can be instantly applied to graphic elements.

The Highlight effect also draws attention to an object as if a light is shining on it from in front and allows you to choose the shape, color and transparency of the effect. The Glow effect creates an effect as if a light is shining behind the object and in which you can vary the spread, shape, intensity, transparency, and inner and outer colors of the glow. The new Emboss and Embed effect creates a pseudo-3D raised appearance in which you can vary the lighting, depth and bevel.

With its range of fills and edges the number of formatting effects that PhotoDraw can apply to an object is virtually limitless. The danger is that you can lose track of just how you created a particular effect so PhotoDraw has imported the Office-standard Format Painter tool to allow you to pick up a custom look and quickly apply it to any other object. Even more useful is the ability to save looks as named styles so that you can apply them in future in other projects. This is particularly useful in the case of the new Emboss and Embed, Glow and Highlight effects for the creation of eye-catching but consistent Web buttons.

PhotoDraw's Gif animation

Animated GIFs can be created with a single click.

PhotoDraw is taking its Web responsibilities seriously and offers a range of other Web-specific effects. Web backgrounds are now simple to create and add to a page thanks to the provision of over 500 tileable textures. Far more advanced is the ability to bring pages to life with Rollovers and Animated GIFs. In each case these are simplicity itself to apply as you only need to select from the range of preset effects based on the sample preview. To see the effect in action on your design you can now automatically preview your page within Explorer. PhotoDraw also now lets you open and edit graphics directly from Internet Explorer and even save them back to the Web page.

Once your design is complete you need to save it to PhotoDraw’s own integrated vector/bitmap MIX format, but to be able to use it elsewhere you’ll need to convert it to a third-party bitmap-based format. The option Microsoft pushes for this is its revamped Save for Use in wizard which walks you through the process depending on which program you want to use the image in. The choices are straightforward: PNG for Word and PowerPoint, TIFF for Publisher and JPEG or GIF for FrontPage. A new Batch command lets you save or convert multiple graphics in one process including optional resizing.

PhotoDraw saves designs as web pages based on nested tables

PhotoDraw saves designs as web pages based on nested tables and works hand in hand with FrontPage.

PhotoDraw 2000 version 2 has support for output to HTML, including the ability to save directly to Microsoft Office Web servers. Save as Web Page and Send to FrontPage commands both work in a similar way, outputting both the necessary GIF or JPEG images and the necessary HTML code to put them together including rollovers and imagemaps. In fact, PhotoDraw automatically groups images and slices the page to create an HTML nested table and so simultaneously cuts download time and opens up space for text and other elements.

While it is efficient, in some ways the process is disappointing. Using the wizards you will eventually be presented with a choice between saving to GIF or JPEG format but there is no customizable control over crucial factors like the total number of colors and dithering for GIF output. For a sliced image this control is even more important as you should be able to set optimized settings for different sections as Macromedia Fireworks shows.

PhotoDraw 2000 version 2 is a major leap forward that begins to unlock the program’s huge potential. Micorsoft's PhotoDraw is well priced for the features it contains and if you are a heavy user of the Office suite of products, a great value. Version 2 is not yet a real threat to the likes of Corel Draw and Adobe Photoshop, but they had better have their act together when version 3 arrives.

System Requirements:

Pentium 166 or higher

32/64Mb of RAM

190Mb of disk space (a further 100MB recommended for cache)

SVGA with 1MB of RAM

Windows 95 or later or NT 4 with Service Pack 2, CD-ROM

Price: $110 (street price)