Lighthouse reviews Microsoft Image Composer beta
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Lighthouse's review: With an effective product aimed solely at
Web authors, Microsoft looks like breaking into the image-manipulation market.
Includes links to other reviews. Much of this material is published in regular
columns in one of Australia's leading newspapers, The Age.
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The Microsoft alternative
Until recently, there wasn't much competition in the vast space between
Paint Shop Pro and Adobe Photoshop. Now Microsoft has discovered one of
its few remaining uncovered markets, and has released a beta version of
a program called Image Composer. It includes the "browser-safe" 216-color
palette, as well as the usual fistful of effects and some excellent text
manipulation. If Microsoft addresses the program's weaknesses, such as an
inability to open multiple images at once, it will become a powerful
contender.
Microsoft intends to ship Image Composer as part of its FrontPage program.
The company will let you download trialware versions of both Frontpage and
Image Composer at
its own site. The download runs to 7.5 Mb, so you might want to merely
use the site to find details on ordering the two programs on CD-ROM.
This, incidentally, makes Microsoft one of the few companies that charges
for beta software - but then, some would say they've been doing that for
many a year ...
Lighthouse on the Web - Graphics Tools
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