CorelDRAW X3 Graphics Suite

The problem is trying to persuade non-professional users who aren't pushing the envelope to upgrade. Thankfully for Corel, X3 is indeed the real thing. This is the first release in years that provides CorelDRAW users with new core power that will make a real difference to their everyday working experience, enabling them to produce better work more quickly. But there isn't enough here to lure existing users of Illustrator.

Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3

During its long history, the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite has included various applications for handling business presentations, basic 3D, animation, charting, desktop publishing and more. Nowadays, it's been boiled down to the vector-based DRAW module and the bitmap-based PHOTO-PAINT. This makes the latter more important than ever to the success of the suite as a whole.

As you'd expect, some of its new features are shared with the main CorelDRAW module. There's the new Hints docker that provides information about the current active tool, and a Help menu option to highlight what's changed over the past few releases - which isn't much. More useful is the new Image Adjustment Lab, which doesn't add new power but brings together the most common existing correction commands in one dialog. There's also new support for spot colours, which can be created with the Channels docker and saved to both PHOTO-PAINT CPT and Photoshop PSD formats.

The Cutout Lab for extracting objects from their backgrounds now offers tools to restore and remove detail, an undo capability and the ability to export results as a new layer or as a clipping mask. But that's about it and, to cover over the ever-widening cracks, Corel has had to resort to bundling a cut-down copy of Pixmantec's RawShooter for handling RAW format files - a core capability if ever there was one in the age of the digital camera.

This is disappointing. At one time PHOTO-PAINT was a serious alternative to Photoshop itself, but now it lags behind even Photoshop Elements. The inclusion of, and integration with, PHOTO-PAINT should be the CorelDRAW suite's greatest strength, but only if both stay up to date.

Author: Tom Arah