Lighthouse reviews CorelDraw

Corel has lifted its game

CorelDRAW! 7.0 In Australia, $649 or $169 upgrade

With CorelDRAW 7, Corel seems to have broken its own rule. For years the Canadian giant dedicated itself to cramming every possible item into its colorful boxes. From its humble origins as a middle-market illustration program, CorelDRAW expanded by last year into a suite containing 13 separate programs. You started to wonder just what Corel wouldn't put in its $A600 box of tricks.

Now, for the first time, Corel appears to have realised that less might be more.

The new CorelDRAW contains just three core programs: the original CorelDRAW illustrator, the Photo-Paint image manipulation program, and CorelDREAM, a licensed version of the respected Ray Dream Designer 3D modelling and rendering package. A solid fistful of useful utilities remain, such as the CorelCAPTURE screen capture program and the CorelDEPTH tool for quick 3D effects. And it wouldn't be a Corel package without 1000 fonts, 32,000 clip-art images, 1000 photos and 250 3D models. But gone are the Ventura desktop publishing program which appeared in version 5, and the Corel Presents presentation package and Corel Motion animator from version 6. The suite now pitches itself squarely at graphics hobbyists and semi-professionals, Windows users who wants sophisticated results but can't justify the $A1500 for Adobe's standard-setting Illustrator and Photoshop.

With that new-found focus has come a new and welcome Corel undertaking to help users actually understand the still-huge package. That commitment shows in the manual, a much-improved two-volume set; it shines through in a rewritten help file and an improved Tutor which now extends to programs like Photo-Paint. Most obvious of all, a new single program bar gives you much of the control that previously resided in eight or so separate "roll-ups", which so miserably littered the screens of previous versions.

The individual tools in the package have all grown since CorelDRAW 6. The CorelDRAW illustrator has gained new click-and-drag gradients, blend and transparency tools, lifted its text-wrapping game, and improved its support for pressure-sensitive graphics tablets. And rather than grappling with CorelDREAM's intimidating interface, you can now start your 3D modelling with a "scene wizard".

But for Web work, it's the new Photo-Paint 7.0 that matters most - and the early signs are good. Photo-Paint now finally mimics Photoshop's ability to apply effects to a single graphic "layer", thus becoming a far more serious rival to the Adobe product.

Photo-Paint also sports a much-needed automatic drop-shadow, removing the need to fumble with Gaussian blur or the program's unsatisfactory feather effect, and it has caught up with Photoshop's ability to apply effects to a single graphic. Photo-Paint's new "image sprayer" makes instant and pleasing collages, and a cut-down version of the magnificent Kai's Power Tools allows total control over spheroid creation and transparencies.

The package also finally delivers Web graphics tools. It now creates image maps and offers the vital 216-color browser-safe color palette, albeit in confusing fashion, as well as supporting JPEG photographic images and transparent GIF format graphics and animations. It will also export CorelDREAM 3D models to the Web's esoteric VRML 3D graphics format.

Among these and many other worthy improvements, disappointments remain. The package demands a Pentium running Windows 95 or NT and 16Mb of RAM, and eats up more than 200 Mb of disk space on a full installation. But it delivers its claimed speed boost unevenly, at least on a basic Pentium 133. Draw and Photo-Paint 7.0 actually opened more slowly than their predecessors at test time. And while Draw delivered noticeable speed improvements, the new Photo-Paint rendered images at essentially the same pace as the old. Old and new versions also crashed at the same place in one test routine. And its Barista program, designed to create vector graphics for the Web using the hot new Java programming language, is essentially unusable at present, creating giant files and rendering designs with uneven accuracy.

Many CorelDRAW competitors make strong cases. Micrografx offers several cheaper drawing tools. JASC's Paint Shop Pro looks a more attractive option for users working primarily with Web sites, and who don't need the fonts, clip-art and utilities. Adobe owns the top end of the market.

Yet surrounded by these rivals, CorelDRAW 7 still makes a case for itself. Despite the improved usability and extra features, the case remains this: with three big programs, clip-art, fonts and utilities, there's a lot in the box. Maybe Corel hasn't changed so much after all.

Visit Corel's DRAW 7.0 site

But you needn't rely on the Lighthouse for guidance ... If you're think CorelDRAW 7.0 might be for you, check these other reviews - all highly favorable. c|net: "Overall, we're impressed with CorelDraw 7, and we believe graphics professionals will like it, too." PC Computing: " While CorelDraw 7's breadth and depth can still be a little intimidating to a novice, it's a markedly better, more convenient product than before." PC World: "Concentrates on some significant and very welcome improvements to the package's two core applications, CorelDraw and Photo-Paint" Publish RGB " An upgrade that is likely to delight true-blue fans and win over a few skeptics such as myself as well" Windows Magazine: "Corel makes good on its promise to give you a lavish selection of useful and powerful tools" CorelNet (independent Corel magazine): "Corel has significantly improved almost every aspect of ... PhotoPaint." Computer Shopper: "New features in CorelDraw 7 lean heavily toward Internet graphics ... CorelDraw 7 is still a fantastic bargain, especially for users of previous versions.". PC Magazine (reviewing PhotoPaint only): "with Version 7, Corel Photo-Paint has come of age, incorporating most of the features of the image-editing stalwart, Adobe Photoshop, in a package that's actually fun to use".

... And here's why Corel needed to lift

CorelDRAW! 6.0

CorelDraw 6.0, available for as little as $A365 these days, includes a 3D illustration program, 3D animator, font and image management, a presentation program, a screen capture utility and Corel's usual heap of solid fonts, photos and clip art.

But Web page creators will focus on its image manipulation program, Photo-Paint 6.0. And they'll be disappointed. Photo-Paint 6.0 does create transparent GIF images, and it has a fistful of effects. But these finer qualities sit behind a difficult user interface which manages to irk even veteran users. On a 486-66, the program is neither outstandingly quick nor completely stable.

And worst, the program's color management is poor. If you want to create the 216-color browser-safe palette in Photo-Paint 6.0, you'll have to manually enter all 216 colors.

CorelDraw 7, now hitting the market, is a much better option. If you buy version 6.0, don't buy it as a web tool.

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