Image Editing Software

Picture Publisher's new photo image editing software displays thumbnails of graphics files, giving users a clear and graphical view of their files. PC Paintbrush, by comparison, shows the traditional File dialog box to view files and directories. Both programs feature tool palettes that give convenient access to frequently used tools such as the magnifying glass and selection tool. Picture Publisher and PC Paintbrush support a number of flatbed and handheld scanners including Hewlett-Packard Co.'s ScanJet IIc scanner.

We scanned images from test documents into PC Paintbrush by clicking on the Scan Image item off the File menu in the program. The Select Scan Area dialog box then allowed us to set brightness, contrast and resolution. The Labs could then edit the image by choosing the Edit Image option.

Picture Publisher is slightly more convenient because it can place the scanned image in a new document without having to switch modes, which is necessary in PC Paintbrush. Picture Publisher also made it possible to scan multiple images consecutively without having to stop and save the previously scanned image. This is ideal for quickly scanning many small images, such as pictures from a magazine. Once images have been scanned into the programs, the real work of editing begins.

Both Picture Publisher and PC Paintbrush have excellent editing tools. PC Week Labs used PC Paintbrush's Sharpen tool to make edges look clearer in a scanned image. Areas selected in PC Paintbrush using the selection tool appeared with a boundary and sizing and skewing handles. Within seconds we skewed an image of a rose to include it in a logo that was placed in a document.

PC Week Labs applied special effects in Picture Publisher by using the magic wand tool to select the background. The Labs then selected Special from the Effects menu and chose from a wide variety of effects such as mosaic and graphic pen. We also applied a gradient fill to the same masked region by dragging the fill tool to set the direction of the gradient.

Picture Publisher's Color Shield feature came in handy during editing as it prevented specified colors from being inadvertently altered. Clicking the Color Shield button on the status bar at the bottom of the screen brought up the Color Shield panel. We then selected the Color Shield tool from the tool palette and selected colors by dragging and dropping. Up to eight colors can be protected, and the selection tolerance can also be set for those colors.

Among Picture Publisher's many tools, PC Week Labs found the Defined Mask feature very useful for marking a region of an image for later retrieval. The Labs used the Mask Tool icon to select several regions and then name them. This allowed us to edit those regions without having to manually reselect them.

Both programs produced satisfactory output, but Picture Publisher has the added plus of being able to produce color separations. The package also allows screen angles to be changed when printing color separations.