3. Special Effects

If there is one photo editing area in which PhotoImpact truly excels, it’s the program’s built-in special effects filters. Perhaps best of all, the special effects filters can be used for both still frame photos, or for creating animated effects.

One of most interesting special effects collections is the Creative Lighting filters. There are 10 effects included: Lightning, Fireworks, Lens Flare, Light Bulb, Halo, Spotlight, Flashlight, Meteor, Comet, and Laser. In addition to being used individually, the effects can be combined. The image below shows the PhotoImpact Creative Lighting filter.

In the following image, two fireworks effects are used, plus a lens flare effect behind the fireworks burst on the left. The fireworks on the right use a very subtle hue rotation, to create two slightly differing colors of fireworks in the same fireworks burst.

The PhotoImpact Particle Effect is another unique collection of filters, which contains 8 effects: Bubbles, Clouds, Fire, Fireflies, Rain, Smoke, Snow and Stars.

In the photo below, the PhotoImpact Particle Effect Clouds filter is used to add haze to a photo.

There are 6 additional special effects styled filter packages in PhotoImpact, all of which can be used for both still frame photos and creating animated effects: Animation Studio (effects including water drops, waves, jumps, motion blurs, and page turns); Creative Transform (brushed on warp effects); Creative Warp (warp effects based on fractal-like patterns); Crystal and Glass (effects such as spheres and hexagons); Kaleidoscope Fill (psychedelic patterns, which are not really useful for photo editing); and Type Effect (includes emboss, texture, fire and ice; this is intended for use on fonts and selections).

When these filters are used for animation, you have the option of creating an animated GIF or a sequence of true color bitmap images. You can then open the GIF in Ulead GIF Animator and optimize the file size, or open the series of bitmaps in GIF Animator and create a full color AVI, MPG, QuickTime H.264 movie or Flash animation. The filter’s Save As dialog box includes the option to both save the file and open it in GIF Animator.

There’s only one problem here: Corel didn’t include GIF Animator with PhotoImpact X3, even though it’s been a part of the PhotoImpact ever since the original version. You may be thinking that this isn’t really a problem, since GIF Animator is an inexpensive program that you might not mind buying, but that’s a problem too: Corel pulled Ulead GIF Animator from its product lineup at the end of June. So they not only won’t include it free with PhotoImpact X3, they won’t let you buy it either!

For all of its advantages in the photo editing area, PhotoImpact does have some disadvantages when compared to Photoshop, the most obvious of which is PhotoImpact’s inability to work in the CMYK color space. PhotoImpact can split to and combine from CMYK, which is useful if you like to fine tune attributes such as brightness and contrast based on printer color channels. However, the inability to actually work in CMYK mode, or at least preview images in CMYK mode before printing them, can make it difficult to troubleshoot the issue of monitor colors not matching printer colors.

The main reason for the color discrepancy is that monitors use the RGB color space and printers use the CMYK color space. When an image can be previewed in CMYK mode before printing, the task of color matching becomes more straightforward and accurate. I realize that Ulead was contractually bound to avoid CMYK mode during its non-compete period with Photoshop, but that contract expired a few years ago. There’s no excuse for still not having this feature today.

Also, PhotoImpact does not have a good tool for refining the edges of selections, something that’s often needed in photo editing. Ironically, Corel Photo-Paint has what I feel are the best tools in the business for refining selection edges. Even Photoshop has been somewhat lacking in this area in the past, but has taken a significant step forward with the addition of the Refine Edge tool in CS 3.

Finally, PhotoImpact lacks a high end color transparency selector to use when working with objects and layers. The most disturbing aspect of these disadvantages is that users have been asking for fixes on wish lists and message boards since the year 2000 (if not earlier). Ulead ignored its users, InterVideo ignored its users, and now Corel is ignoring its users.