It's not an essential upgrade for users of Version 11, but it's a strong product in its own right nonetheless.Could be the latest version of Corel'beds powerful graphics collection, and adds several compelling features to its keystone component, the CorelDRAW vector images manager (a.t.a. Adobe's suite also offers more than CorelDraw Graphics Suite-specifically Version Cue's file management and Acrobat Professional.īut for users who simply want accessible imaging and illustration power, the $399 Corel Graphics Suite 12 is a cost-effective option that offers impressive creativity, a wealth of accessible features, and intelligent workflow. The Adobe suite features the industry-defining Photoshop and Illustrator.
The competing Adobe Creative Suite is an indispensable tool for graphics professionals-especially those who must be seen to be using the top brand-name product in their field no matter what it costs ($749 and up).
In addition to the three main programs, the Graphics Suite includes CorelTrace 12 (which converts bitmapped images into vector shapes), CorelCapture 12 (a screen-capture utility), Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications 6.3 (for macro building), Bitstream Font Navigator 5.0, QuickTime 6.0 Player, and Kodak Digital Science color management, plus a large library of clip art and fonts. The Export to Microsoft Office or WordPerfect Office dialog offers the option of optimizing a graphic for presentation, desktop, or commercial printing. With the product's Unicode support, sharing files across international borders is better enabled, since it includes more than 65,000 characters for all written languages. Unfortunately, it still does not support digital camera RAW formats, which will disappoint photographers who shoot with digital SLRs. Version 12 takes compatibility even further, including more robust AutoCAD DXF/DWG support. The one new tool is a Touch-Up brush which, like Photoshop's popular Healing brush, lets you easily paint away imperfections.Ĭorel has always offered extensive import and export options covering a wide range of file formats. Photo-Paint is virtually unchanged in this version, other than the suite-wide improvements regarding language and export. It also lets you copy a range of properties, such as outline, fill, size, rotation, effects, and other attributes, and apply them to other objects. The Eyedropper tool in pick up color from anywhere on your desktop. Similarly, you can align to the tangent or perpendicular of an object, or even to the baseline or bounding box of text. Point to a current object with your cursor and start drawing or placing another object, and words will actually display as you work, telling you whether you are snapping to a node, intersection, edge, midpoint, or center. The Guides work interactively with the improved Snap to Objects tool. Turn on Dynamic Guides and alignment lines pop out as you draw, showing you precisely the angles and relationships between what is already on the page and what you are drawing.
The curves are smoothed and extra nodes removed on the fly, leaving you free to sketch out your ideas rather than waste time worrying whether a square is actually square. With the new Smart Drawing tool, freehand–drawn shapes are recognized and automatically converted into perfect geometric objects, such as circles, ellipses, rectangles, and so on. 3, which make it easier to create and place objects quickly and precisely. The most impressive innovations in the new Graphics Suite are the intelligent drawing tools in CorelDraw and R.A.V.E. 3 uses CorelDraw's excellent object creation and manipulation tools to animate sophisticated geometric shapes. Though not as powerful or versatile as other animation programs (like Macromedia Flash), R.A.V.E. Its typography handles text almost as well as a desktop publishing program, with the ability to lay out long documents up to at least 99 pages. Similarly, CorelDraw has a heritage of first-rate illustration tools. They are simple to control and come with a wide range of options for texture, shape, pressure, color variability, and more. Photo-Paint's natural media brushes, for instance, as well as CorelDraw's Artist Media brushes, are among the most extensive on the market. Previous versions of the suite already offered an impressive array of intuitive tools and features, providing users with easy access to tremendous power, especially for photo/image editing and illustration.