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PhotoImpact4
Part 2
By Scott Clark
PhotoImpact4 is a powerhouse for Web developers
PhotoImpact has been a favorite tool of designers since its intitial release in 1996. After adding some Web specific features last year, Ulead introduced PhotoImpact3 with Web Extensions. This year, PhotoImpact4 adds even more Web-specific features to the tool's featureset. Among the features are:
- GIF Animator 2.0, which enables you to create banner ads and transition effects
- the ability to create anti-aliased 2D and 3D buttons from any shaped selection
- the ability to create 3D text with bevel, material, bump, shadow and lighting control
- SmartSaver 3.0, which enables you to visually optimize GIF, JPEG and PNG images
- Macro Recorder, which takes the pain out of often-repeated Web graphic tasks
- Web Slide Show, which enables you to create professional Web catalogs or presentations
Aside from the obvious use of SmartSaver and the GIF Animator, PhotoImpact will be most useful to Web developers for the ease of creating text effects for use on Web pages.
Consider the "WebDeveloper.com Product Review" image at the top of the page. This image was created using one of our WebDeveloper.com logos, to which I added some text, along with a shadow. I used the Transform Tool (See Figure 1) to rotate the text until it covered the WD logo, and then I sized it by grabbing the side of the text object and dragging it until it was the size that I was looking for. I saved the image as a GIF with a transparent background, and it ended up as you see it, weighing in at a meager 6K.
Figure 1: PhotoImpact4's Transform Tool
The different things which can be done to text using PhotoImpact4 will just blow your mind. To start with, we'll make a simple text image without any enhancements. Then we'll add shadow to the text, and we'll bend the text a bit using the text Path tool. Then we'll make the text 3D Round, and we'll adjust the bevel and lighting a bit (See Figure 2).
Figure 2: These are the four stages I went through to create the 3D text image.
This article first appeared in March, 1998.
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