 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group CorelDraw 9 Jim Colbert colbert@melbpc.org.au |
 |
When I first started messing around with graphics, back in the days of Windows 3.11, everybody I know in the graphics and pre-press industry had jokes about "CrashDraw". With hindsight this was probably partly due to the fact that most of them were (if you'll excuse the expression) "Mac people". Corel enjoyed at best a mediocre reputation throughout the pre-press bureaus.
So apart from a quick look once in a while, I studiously avoided it.
Then, a couple of years back, a mate invited me along to a Corel presentation (with the flippant comment that at least we'll get a bite to eat, a few free drinks and maybe a T-shirt). I thought "Oh, why not?". There was nothing good on TV and he's always good company. So I went along with the idea.
Well, they gave us our T-shirts and a CD-ROM with CorelDraw 8 onl it but nothing to drink until after we listened to the sales pitch. Anyway, this young Canadian chap started talking about how CorelDraw is a good program then he demonstrated it. By the time he had finished we were impressed, to put it mildly. Next day I loaded the CDROM, ran the tutor, had a play around and became an instant convert.
Then, recently, CorelDraw9 (CD9) shipped.
This is one hell of a product for the price. The package comprises CD9 a vector graphic (drawing) program and PhotoPaint - a bitmap image manipulation program and a screen capture utility, texture creator, thumbnail image cataloguing software, a barcode creator, a tracing program for converting bitmap images to vector graphics plus, what I think is the best font management program I've ever seen or used, Bitstream Font Manager.
The Components
CorelDraw 9 is basically a vector graphic drawing package along the lines of Adobe Illustrator or Macrornedia Freehand. You create objects or pictures by drawing them with the various tools, pens and so on, using either Bezier curves, prearranged objects such as rectangles or ellipses that call be easily converted to whatever shape you like; colour them in, play round with them, lay them out on a page and hey presto.
Additionally, CD9 incorporates full page layout capability; you can even have subsequent pages of different sizes and allows for the inclusion of bitmap images. So, it's really a bit more than just a vector drawing graphic program. You could actually put tire whole of this magazine together oil it if you had the time and patience, although I think that might stretch the resources a bit thin. However, for doing CD artwork and the usual 8-page booklet (CD9 is fine and nowadays that's all I use - instead of the three separate programs I once needed.
The program is, at first, a bit daunting because there is so much information and so many options available on the screen. But, once you become accustomed to where to find things, it's amazingly quick and easy to use. The built-in tutorial leads you very quickly and easily through all the basics and if you have a general knowledge of graphics programs, it takes only a short time before you're up and running.
The Property Bar actually changes depending on which tool you've selected so that the options become self-explanatory once you're familiar with them. The choices arc a little mind-boggling at first. For example, it takes a few mouse clicks to create a polygon, change the number of sides, convert it to a star, morph it, fill it with weird and wonderful textures, add drop shadows, then copy and paste it (right-click, drag and drop - great time saver) and then run a blend of the same object with colour changes. (see Figure 1)
|
|
The CD cover for the Speed Kings , apart from drawing one little guy, took about 15 minutes - a job that would have taken hours a few years back. (see Figure 2)
|
|
Then there's the very nice interface to all the other parts of the package. You can import bitmaps and do basic editing on them without leaving CD9. Full editing is just as easy- click on the menu option: Bitmaps, Edit Bitmap... and PhotoPaint opens up containing your selected image ready to edit. When you close PhotoPaint, answer Yes to the popup question and your changes are saved directly into your CorelDraw file.
The number of features are far too numerous to handle satisfactorily in one article but a few deserve special mention.
The interactive fill tools enables you to create multicolour fills of various types at the click of a mouse button; extrusions, transparency, blending, distorting, contouring, drop shadows and more are just a mouse click away and you can even paint with images.
As well as that, CD9 now seems to be compatible with almost everything. It exports to EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) files perfectly as far as I've been able to see; I have exported to EPS and then printed the EPS file from a Mac using Quark Xpress with no problems; and it has a list of conversion options from/to other programs that is too long to detail here.
Then there's the printing capability. First, when you go to print it comes up with a list of "issues" - problems that you could run into when you print your work or, more importantly, problems that could occur when you send your work to a prepress bureau or printer. This saves a lot of heartache for both the user and, more importantly, the printer/bureau (if you give to a bureau files containing problems, don't expect the greatest service - if any at all!).
Then, when you go to print preview, you have all these layout options - such as printing your image 5x4 (five copies across and four copies up, or any other combination you want) - great for business cards and things like that and you can do page imposition and layout, adjust gutters and margins, print books perfect-bound or saddle-stitched, work & turn, or work & tumble. If that's all a foreign language to you, then you're not familiar with the printing industry. Just a few years ago, that work required a page imposition program that could cost you over $4,000.
Of course it does web design work, too.
Then there's PhotoPaint. I should preface these words by stating that primarily I'm still a Photoshop user I haven't had the time to fully learn PhotoPaint and there are a few more differences here than there are between, say, Illustrator and Draw.
All the standard bitmap editing functions are there with the facility to add as many layers and bits and pieces that you could want. For Photoshop users the terminology is quite different so it will take you a bit longer to get used to it, but the functionality appears pretty much the same.
I'm told that PhotoPaint does not have 16-bit per channel capabilities, making it less useful for colour correction than, say Photoshop but apart from that I can't see an enormous amount of difference.
Of the other add-ons in the package, Corel Trace is a program that converts bitmap images to vector graphics (or to complex line drawings), which you can then edit and play around with in CorelDraw. This is useful if you have to scan a piece of artwork but don't want the hassle of working with relatively enormous bitmap files.
Canto Cumulus is an image-cataloguing program that allows you to keep track of all those image files you have lying around. The version included is only the LE (Limited Edition) but it's more than adequate for most usage.
Finally there's the Bitstream Font Navigator. Really simple and, in my opinion, worth its weight in gold. This lovely little package finds all the fonts on your system and lets you install and uninstall by just dragging and dropping; as well as letting you find all those duplicate fonts that come from installing lots of different packages. You can also browse and view all the installed and/or uninstalled fonts using any text you like, browsing by font type, by font style and so forth.
That's the package in brief. The really interesting thing is the price. According to the latest Age Green Guide the Adobe Publishing Collection is available for $1,749, Adobe Illustrator 8 costs $699 by itself and Photoshop 5.5 is $1,059 (including Image Ready). The CorelDraw 9 upgrade is $408 with the Select edition (which entitles you to an upgrade) available in Melbourne for just $69.
As a sophisticated graphics package, CorelDraw 9 is excellent. At the price, it has to be the best value-for-money graphics package on the market.
About the Author
Jim Colbert has spent most of his life in international banking and structured financing and
currently runs a boutique corporate finance and advisory service. He also moonlights as a photographer and
graphic designer. In his spare time he messes around with computers and ties flies on the vague of chance
that he'll eventually catch a fish.
Reprinted from the November 1999 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
