Photo Impression by ArcSoft is a mid-priced
photo editing software
with adequate editing tools, dated clip art, a quick slide show
function and email. It’s simple, fast and intuitive, but there are
higher ranked products to achieve better results. Unfortunately, there
were a lot of things that were missing from Photo Impression, which did
nothing but knock it down several positions in the rankings. If this
program was a little more complex, we wouldn't have a hard time putting
it higher in our rankings. The problem here is a testament to the
delicate balance a lot of software manufacturers have to deal with all
the time. They want to make easy to use programs that are also useful.
It's difficult to determine whether they should go more for ease of use
than usefulness or the other way around. Photo Impression fails in its
attempt to find this balance.
Photo Impression is very easy to use with a simple interface. Tabs make
locating all tasks easy, and the task screens are uncluttered. At Photo
Impression, it’s one task at a time.
Images can be opened from a folder, camera/scanner, removable media or
an ArcSoft Album. PhotoImpression 6.5 Gold has the tools to fix the most
common problems in photos. Use Easy-Fix Wizard to straighten, crop, fix
red eye, add brightness and contrast, sharpen, adjust the color or make
the subject stand out.
The Photo Editing Tools feature duplicates some of the auto-mode tools,
but offers retouching and cloning. Results appear coarse. Here, layers
are simply built-in objects, text or multiple photos that you can click
on and move around. Transparency is not supported in PhotoImpression.
Text is added and edited in a text box. Here, you can change the size,
color and font and make it either bold or italic. Insert a drop shadow,
apply a texture or color gradient to the text to add some depth to the
text. Every text style has to be a separate object, however and you
can't have a different text treatment in the middle of a sentence.
PhotoImpression really only has two ways of sharing your photos: email
and limited printing. To increase PhotoImpression’s printing options,
you can link to ArcSoft Photo Greeting card, ArcSoft PhotoPrinter and
ArcSoft CD & DVD LabelMaker, but you’ll have to purchase the
software.
We all have computers that are cluttered with digital media. A lot
of us have so much on one computer that's it's hard to keep track of
everything. PhotoImpression steps in and helps organize everything for
you automatically. View your files by date with the Calendar Browser.
Here are some additional organizing features:
- The Import History Browser: organizes files based on when they were copied to your computer.
- The Folder Browser gives you a Windows-like view.
- The Stack feature lets you stack your photos into virtual piles.
- You can view your photos as thumbnails, full-screen and in between.
- If you're still having a hard time finding your photos, you can
search for photos by keywords and tags and based on what the image looks
like.
The help for PhotoImpression is lacking. There is a User's Manual and
built-in help, which is more a glossary of feature terms than a
searchable tip index. There are no step-by-step instructions or
screenshots. Online find a searchable FAQ page for all ArcSoft products.
If you need additional technical support, you can contact ArcSoft
through an online form.
Download free Photo Impression 6.5 Gold Products + Patch-Keygen 200MB
