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PICTHIS
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1994-10-18
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Picture This!
review by
Jacci Howard Bear
Picture This! for Windows is an image editing, cataloging,
conversion, and screen capture utility from International
Microcomputer Software, Inc. (IMSI). Having recently completed a
review of another similar program I was anxious to compare the
features of the two programs. As it turns out, Picture This!
handles the image editing beautifully but is lacking in other
essential (to me) areas.
Although the packaging for Picture This! touts its image
management as "complete" I found it incomplete in the image
cataloging arena. You can easily organize images into albums;
however, the program only deals with a limited number of bitmap
images--and no vector graphics. When adding just one image to an
existing album the update re-reads each existing image in the album.
This can be overly time-consuming when updating a large album. You
can add titles and comments to each album, as well as to each image
. But you must launch the actual image before editing the contents
of the image info. There is a basic sort function allowing you to
sort the thumbnail images in an album by name or size but no way to
search by title, comments, or keywords. This would make locating
specific images in a large album tedious.
There is no print function for the album (thumbnail images)
which is important to me. I like to plop down in the middle of my
bed some evenings with a notebook full of cataloged images and
search for the perfect or near perfect illustrations for my work.
The Picture This! albums are on-screen only.
The screen capture utility is functional if somewhat limited.
It captures full screens, windows, and rectangular portions of the
screen to file. There is no freehand capture function. There is no
capturing to the clipboard--all screen captures go directly to a
file. However, the program does provide for a user-defined hotkey,
and pre-defined file prefix making multiple screen shots simple.
The speed of the screen capture is slow and the quality is only
"fair."
In spite of the less than spectacular showing in image
cataloguing and screen capture, Picture This! has wonderful photo
retouching and special effects capabilities. Just a few of the
tools are: edge, sculpt, emboss, brightness/contrast/gamma control,
sharpen, soften, and pixelize. Most of these tools also have
several options to control how they work. The ability to overlay
images to create "multiple exposures" and add textures and patterns
and tints makes the program both flexible and loads of fun. It ha s
a variety of halftone screens and patterns. The cropping/matte
features are also interesting--rectangular with custom corners and
round shapes.
Picture This! converts images to grayscale, bilevel (black &
white), and color. It also converts to and from several formats
including BMP, GIF, JPEG, and TIFF. Batch file conversions make it
possible for you to convert a variety of images to another format in
just one operation. The list of supported formats is not as
extensive as most other conversion programs I have encountered.
Overall, the program is easy to learn and use. The manual is
well-written, if brief. If you have never delved into image editing
you may find the appendix useful. It provides an overview of such
items as halftones, DPI, and image processing.
Other features of Picture This! include TWAIN scanner support,
printing of poster size images, and Photo CD support.
The image cataloging and screen capture capabilities of Picture
This! do not overly impress me. They aren't bad. They just aren't
as full-featured as other similar programs. The variety of image
editing and special effects and the ease of use are splendid. The
only serious problem I encountered was an apparent incompatibility
with TIFF images exported from CorelDRAW! Something about the TIFF
files that CorelDRAW! creates causes Picture This! to crash when
loading those files.
For someone looking for a mid-level image editing program with
more than just a handful of features, I do recommend Picture This!
I wouldn't call it a "complete" image manager and editor; but, it
does have some wonderfully fun (and useful) features.
Requirements: IBM PC-AT or PS/2 (at least 10Mhz 286/386)
mouse
2MB minimum RAM
MS-Windows 3.x
EGA, VGA, Super VGA, 8, 16 or 24-bit graphics device
TWAIN Scanner (optional)
IMSI
1938 Fourth Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
(415) 454-7101