Canada's
affordable
graphics
alternative
by
Alan Zisman (c) 2005 First published in
Business
in
Vancouver August
9-15, 2005; issue 824
High Tech Office
column
Last week we looked at
Adobe's
new Creative Suite 2, a combo of the company's Photoshop, Illustrator
and other programs, many of which have become the standard tools of
graphics and design professionals. But many of us sometimes need to
work with photos, illustrations or page layout but can't justify the
cost of Adobe's toolset.
Ottawa-based
Corel
has
long-offered a more affordable alternative: its current suite,
CorelDraw 12 sells for $250, less than the cost of any one of CS2's
component programs, and far less than the $1,500 cost of the Adobe's
entire suite. Like Adobe, Corel has been in the graphics business for a
long time: CorelDraw first came out in the late 1980s, running on
Windows 2.0. (Unlike Adobe, CorelDraw's current version is
Windows-only). The suite includes the main CorelDraw program for line
drawings, Photo-Paint for photo editing and RAVE for animation along
with several smaller graphics utilities, a host of fonts and clipart,
an on-disc tutorial and (unusual today) hefty printed documentation and
a directory of the clipart and fonts.
There's a lot of power hidden behind a mature, well-developed user
interface. Photo-Paint, for example, includes a nice set of natural
media tools, making digital files appear as if they were created with
physical paints on canvas or paper. CorelDraw has long included an
outstanding toolset for working with text. Support for documents of up
to 99 pages can let it substitute for a dedicated page layout program.
While RAVE lacks all the power and features of industry-standard
animator Macromedia Flash (recently purchased by Adobe), it is able to
build on CorelDraw's tools to animate geometric shapes. New to both
CorelDraw and RAVE is a Smart Drawing tool that recognizes and corrects
freehand attempts and geometric shapes. An improved Eyedropper tool
picks up colours from anywhere on your screen, not just within the
program's window. Photo-Paint gains a new TouchUp brush, which, similar
to Adobe PhotoShop's Healing Brush, paints away photo scratches and
blemishes. The multiple programs interact nicely. For example, a
brochure created in CorelDraw might include a Photo-Paint image;
double-clicking it loads the image into Photo-Paint, which then sends
your changes back into the CorelDraw layout. A new Export to Microsoft
Office (or WordPerfect) option preps graphics for use in other
contexts. The suite also imports and exports Adobe graphics formats and
AutoCAD illustrations.
Bundled utilities include CorelTrace, which traces photo outlines,
making them usable with CorelDraw, CorelCapture for screen captures and
Bitstream Font Navigator for quick access and organization of fonts.
The full suite can be downloaded as a 30-day free trial, and if
CorelDraw 12 still seems too much for your budget, Corel offers
CorelDraw Essentials 2, bundling the previous CorelDraw 11 program,
fonts and clipart for $120.
Online buyers of CorelDraw will also receive a free copy of Volume 1 of
Corel's set of Design Collection (regularly $125). This packs 100
professional-looking templates for CorelDraw, including 10 styles of
letterheads, envelopes, business cards, flyers and brochures. Replacing
the boilerplate text and images with your own company's name, address,
and logo easily results in a consistent set of graphical materials.
Volumes 2 and 3 of the series ($65 apiece) each include another five
sets of templates. Previews of the templates can be viewed online prior
to purchase.
Corel has pretty much given up attempts to win over the hearts and
budgets of graphics professionals. Instead, they are positioning
CorelDraw as a tool permitting people with small and mid-sized
businesses to produce or adapt graphical designs in-house for business
presentations, brochures, websites and more. It can be used by
restaurants for menu creation and is widely used for sign making and
screen-printing. For business users needing to do their own graphics
and layout, this Canadian alternative offers a solid combination of
power and value.