Image Editing Software

With digital images, changes are hard to undo. Many of the filters and other modification tools of digital image editing software let you preview the result before committing to it; you'd be wise to take advantage. After that, there's only one level of undo. A program with this much destructive power ought to have more.

If your artistic confidence falters, context-sensitive help is available throughout the program, deftly conformed to the Windows standard with hypertext-like cross-referencing and lots of illustrations. Once you're past the tutorial, you'll find the user's guide easy to work with. It simply strolls through each tool and menu option. A leisurely read through the almost 200-page volume will put the whole program in perspective.

Once you're hooked on scanning, an image-processing program becomes essential. PhotoFinish should satisfy the requirements of all but professional power users for doctoring an existing image, and the tools for simple drawing should make an artist out of anyone who can wield a mouse. Although it makes no use of Windows' trendy acronyms--DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) and OLE (Object Linking and Embedding)--PhotoFinish still has found a worthy home in that environment. The unbeatable price makes it one of the most attractive image-editing programs around.

Two diverse offerings in the image-editing arena bring simplicity to the masses. ZSoft Corp.'s PC Paintbrush 5+ 1.0 offers quality image-editing tools for DOS users, but limits the size and types of files users can edit. Micrografx Inc.'s Picture Publisher 3.1 for Windows boasts advanced image-editing features, OLE and the ability to produce color separations. PC Paintbrush 5+ version 1.0 for DOS from ZSoft and Picture Publisher for Windows version 3.1 from Micrografx make image editing easier for those who aren't graphics professionals.

The $ 495 Picture Publisher -- an incremental upgrade -- offers interaction with other Windows applications through Object Linking and Embedding. ZSoft's $ 199 PC Paintbrush offers DOS users many of the tools and features of competing low-end Windows editors such as its stable mate, ZSoft's PhotoFinish.

However, both programs, which were first shipped in volume last month, have flaws and limitations. PC Paintbrush offers limited file formats: PCX, Graphics Interchange Format and TIFF. Picture Publisher's support of Joint Photographics Expert Group (JPEG) --a graphics format that maximizes file compression -- is erratic. In PC Week Labs tests, Picture Publisher was sometimes unable to open JPEG files saved in Aldus Corp.'s PhotoStyler and U-Lead Systems Inc.'s ImagePals.

To test Picture Publisher's OLE capability, the Labs used Microsoft Corp.'s Word 2.0 and Lotus Development Corp.'s Ami Pro 3.0 as test clients. We embedded an OLE object in a document by first copying the graphic in Picture Publisher and then pasting it into Word or Ami Pro. The pasted graphic appeared in a small graphics box that, when double-clicked, launched Picture Publisher and allowed the Labs to edit and save the image.