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By James E. Powell
PhotoDeluxe offers all the built-in expertise you'd expect from Adobe, but with a much lower frustration factor for the novice than with Photoshop.
It lets you do just about anything with a photo. You can work manually or use the Guided Activities. These can touch up or transform an image, build report covers and make calendars. One, the ingenious Quick Fix, automatically adjusts a photo for the best color balance.
The program gives you much of Adobe Photoshop's power, and if you work manually you'll access a far wider range of photographic effects.
PhotoDeluxe's user interface leaves nothing to chance, taking you step by step through each process.
Unfortunately, there were some serious problems with the interface on my beta version. Although there are numbered tabs at the top of each activity, a large red arrow tells you to start with Step 2, but clicking on Step 2 doesn't work. There's also no way to return to previous steps. It's not immediately obvious how to get rid of the numerous dialog box prompts.
And there's another disappointment: None of the clip art or templates for the Guided Activities is suitable for business use. I'll withhold judgment on performance, too. Even for a beta, the program was exceptionally slow in some areas, and I installed it on a well-equipped ACMA system with a 166MHz Pentium, 16MB of RAM and a video card with 4MB of video RAM.
Still, if your photo manipulation needs are very simple and you don't fancy a steep learning curve (who does?), PhotoDeluxe is a good choice.
-- Info File --
PhotoDeluxe 1.0
Price: $89
Pros: Ease of use
Cons: Interface
Platforms: Windows 95, 3.1x, NT
Adobe Systems
800-888-6293, 415-961-4400
WinMag Box Score 3.0
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