The new Microtek flatbed scanner offers the high resolution and ICE dust-busting of its top i900 model but in a much more compact body that gets rid of the original dual ‘plates’ in favour of a conventional glass bed and illuminated hood.
The latest version of Sorenson’s Squeeze Compression Suite takes a slight departure, looks-wise, from its predecessors. Although it retains the simplistic and intuitive workflow the interface is more akin to higher-end video solutions with dark windows sporting orange and white highlights.
Continnum 3.0 is a massive set of video plug-ins. The collection runs with Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, or After Effects, and there’s a Continuum AVX version for Avid Xpress. Over 40 plug-ins have been brought into the mix since version 2.0, which brings the total number of plug-ins to around 150.
Au Naturel is an After Effects plug-in that restores a more realistic gamma curve to video footage, instead of the one imposed through your camera or MPEG compression. It allows you to manipulate footage in a 32-bit per channel, floating point linear RGB colour space.
When Painter 8 appeared, it was hailed as the breakthrough version that finally transformed Painter’s ghastly interface into something usable. The changes in Painter IX are less dramatic, but it’s still a good upgrade. Corel has put a great deal of effort into the documentation, help, and tutorials.
Demicron’s latest version of this Web multimedia tool is as simple to use as its predecessors. It has the same logical structure and methodology for creating interactive 3D elements but with a new, cleaner interface. It’s Java-based, but you don’t need any programming knowledge to build applications and objects for streaming into Web pages.
This drawing and illustration application has been in a crisis of identity recently. In the last couple of years it’s been called eveything from Corel Xara to Webster. This upgrade bears the name Xara X1.
For the creation of 3D vector animation and 3D Flash movies, Swift 3D, is one of the most successful tools on the market. This is largely thanks to its ease-of-use. It allows 2D designers to draw shapes using bézier curves, and then using the extrusion tool to add both depth and bevels, or the Lathe Editor to convert paths into radial 3D surfaces.
SketchUp stands out among 3D graphics programs thanks to its innovative and simple ‘push/pull’ approach, which makes it easy to sketch 2D shapes and then quickly manipulate them in three dimensions with the mouse.
According to Extensis, a lot of designers and photographers are in denial about the fact that they actually need a product like Portfolio.
Of the three updates to Adobe’s Video Collection, After Effects has got the most out of the point-five upgrade. Plus, it costs £70 plus VAT whether you’re upgrading the Standard Edition or the Professional Edition, which is very reasonable. AE 6.5 claims more than 60 new effects, most of which have been bought from Cycore – the creators of the popular Final Effects plug-in set. Most of these are solid, one-shot effects, though effects such as ...
Flash is used mainly for creating vector animations, but recent upgrades have put increasing emphasis on its ability to use video content within SWF files. With the arrival of Flash MX, Macromedia introduced a new ‘flash video’ format (FLV) specifically for that purpose. Flash video hasn’t taken off in a big way as yet, but Flix Pro could be the program that helps to popularize the format.
Macromedia’s Dreamweaver seems to have the professional Web design market tied up. However, Dreamweaver is a vast and complex application, so there’s still a place for programs that provide quick solutions to Web-creation. Fusion 8 is easy to use, but the developer’s shameless money-grabbing is shocking at times.
It’s been a while since any of the main Web-streaming software tools have been updated, but like the proverbial bus, three have turned up at once. While long-term frontrunner Cleaner sits in development hell, the last month has seen the announcement of updates to Canopus’ ProCoder, Sorenson’s Squeeze Compression Suite, and RealNetworks RealProducer 10.
Although billed with the creative tag of an interactive multimedia tool, Opus Pro 04 is clearly designed with the business user in mind. While this may not be everyone’s cup of Java, the corporate space is obviously where the money is, so a tool that addresses this market directly is definitely worth a look. The company promotes the use of Opus Pro as ...
Profile Mechanic consists of two independent programs, sold separately. Profile Mechanic Monitor can calibrate and write ICC correction profiles for CRT and LCD monitors. It provides a small USB colorimeter sensor with interchangeable supports for both types of monitor. Profile Mechanic Scanner creates correction profiles for any flatbed or transparency scanner, as well as digital cameras.
FileMaker seems to be aiming straight at the content creation market with version 7 of this database solution. There is a new field type called a Container that can be used to store digital pictures, movies, music, and other digital media – up to 4GB per field. It’s not only for the creative side of the business though, as the Container field can handle Word documents, full Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, PowerPoint presentation files, OLE objects, and more.
Previous updates to Maya, one of the biggest 3D animation package out there, have seen Alias attempt to make the software easier to use. The company has sought to widen its appeal to include designers and DCC artists not working at the cutting-edge of 3D animation, and to slash the price too.
Final Cut Pro may be Apple’s main offering for the professional video-editing market, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the cut-down Final Cut Express as a mere toy for consumers and hobbyists. After all, it was Final Cut Express that finally put paid to the Mac version of Premiere, by offering some impressive editing features at a much lower price.
Creating Web sites is a lot easier now than it was ten, or even five years ago. NetObjects Fusion has been around since the late 90s offering an easy to use Web site-authoring solution for those who don’t understand HTML and other Web code. NetObjects Fusion maintains this tradition with a host of wizards and tools to create anything from ...
