Corel Photo Impact X3 Review

 Powerful, easy and affordable image editing for families, digital photo enthusiasts and even professionals

Review by Mark Shapiro

Are you looking for a good Windows program to help you fix, correct and edit your digital images? Check out the new Corel Ulead Photo Impact 3. It is an affordable program (under $70) for both editing and fixing your digital files, as well as for creating and editing a wide range of digital image files and creative projects. This latest version offers new features and capabilities while keeping previous versions of PhotoImpact’s impressive ease of use and power.

PhotoImpact X3 is an appropriate solution for the amateur digital photographer as well as for the professional who needs to do some quick and effective image and photo editing. It may not offer the high level power and sophisticated image editing capabilities of the industry stalwart, Adobe Photoshop but at $69.99, it is lot less expensive and much easier to use. And you can download and try out a fully functional version of the program for free at the corel.com web site.

Not only can you use PhotoImpact to correct and fix your pictures, but it can also be used to help organize your photos (as well as your videos), create cool looking graphic images based on your photos as well as any other kind of digital imagery, and also create a cornucopia of digital projects for home, friends, and business uses.

Let’s start with how you can use PhotoImpact X3 for your digital camera and digital photos.

When you first launch PhotoImpact X3, you start at a control panel that enables you to easily select what task you want to complete.

You can choose to download photos directly from your camera or pull them off your memory media such as a flash card. You can also retrieve photos that are already stored on your hard drive. Once you have got your photos, you can use either the ExpressFix application or the Full Edit application to correct and edit them.

You can also decide to directly drop your photos into a project – such as a calendar, collage, DVD menu or other kind of digital image project.

ExpressFix for Quick and Easy Image Correction

If you are in a hurry or don’t want to deal with a lot of choices, you should use the ExpressFix mode.

It opens up with a panel that features a variety of image corrections, fixes and enhancements that are just a single click away. Even better, it provides before and after views so you can see just what effect your choices will have on your image.

Some of these correction capabilities include “smart Curves” which is used to bring out details in dimly lit areas of your image, without overexposing highlights and areas that are correctly exposed. “Automatic White Balance Control” enables the user to quickly and easily make the colors look natural for a variety of lighting environments. Indoors, outdoors, anywhere. Pretty cool and very useful.

Another interesting control is the Noise Reduction mode that automatically cleans up and reduces the digital artifacts and grain often found in images that were shot in low light or at overly high ISA settings. This especially useful if you find yourself with lots of pictures shot with a low-resolution camera phone. The monochrome effect is also located here as well.

In addition to the automatic corrections, the ExpressFix application also includes controls to repair overall exposure, color saturation, focus, enhance lighting and an effect called Beautify Skin which smoothes out blotches and makes your friends and relatives look better.

On the top right of the GUI is a button that allows you to toggle between the ExpressFix application to the standard “Full Edit” image editing application that provides you with an almost overwhelming full range of effects, filters and controls. This is where you can access the most powerful effects and features.

You can work with simple and complex layers; apply a plethora of special effects, filters, transitions, and color/image corrections. These include color curves, levels, color balance, color replacement, brightness, contrast, focus, etc.  You can add text and graphics to your shots; you can add soft edges and alpha channels. If you really want to be artistic, you can use the path tool to create 2D and 3D graphics, signs and logos.

The Lens Distortion filter enables you to correct wide-angle distortion artifacts.  The program includes a handful of powerful retouching effects - you can dodge, burn, and remove scratches and blotches. The SmartRemove Scene Compositor enables you to do magic. You can remove unwanted faces and images from your photos – or you can add in additional faces, people, or locations to your shot. Fool the world as you and Paris Hilton stroll across the surface of the moon.

Fun Effects and Projects - PhotoImpact X3

It also provides a link to a bunch of fun effects and end use projects like calendars, frames, DVD menus, web pages, etc. PhotoImpact includes a library of over 800 objects and 2500 customizable effects and transitions.

For example, check out the Artistic Impressionist effect. You can view it in a dual side-by-side mode or a split image mode that lets you see one side of the image with the effect and one side without. As you would expect, the various effects include controls to let you dial in intensity and other creative options.

In addition to the expected photo correction and graphics authoring capabilities, you can also use PhotoImpact to create a fun assortment of digital projects like comic strips, image collages, DVD labels, greeting cards, personal calendars, etc.

Let’s create a customized calendar. The first step is launching the calendar creation wizard from the opening screen or from any of the various project pages. Next, you scroll down the left column to pick out the appropriate calendar template. You then use the control on top of the page to pick the right month and date. The next step is the Customize button that allows you to find and insert the images you want to use on your calendar. Then save and print. Done.

To make it even easier to master all these applications, in addition to the expected online help files and small manual, there is also a SmartGuide, that provides Step-by-step directions on-screen for a various projects like basic and advanced photo-editing, Webpage, video and DVD menu tasks. It also includes links that can take you directly to the tools you need. Sweet. Also, if you visit the Corel PhotoImpact web site, there are an assortment of tutorials that will demonstrate how to accomplish some of the more sophisticated projects and graphic challenges.

PhotoImpact for Web Design

One of the features I really like is the web page design capability – especially the wizard for creating web banners, buttons, icons, etc. This is great for web designers and anyone who does business on the web. The banner design menu lets you pick from an assortment of banner templates, and then change and later the color schemes and the text to meet your individual needs. PhotoImpact also includes a variety for other tools for designing web pages including creation of backgrounds, text, html, design elements, etc. If you are not a graphic artist, this is a lifesaver.

You can use the PhotoImpact slideshow prep wizard and the DVD Menu Maker to create unique DVD menus for use in slide shows and DVD videos. You can use the program’s DVD content sets to design and print out DVD labels and case covers that match the DVD menus that you created.

What Else Do You Get with PhotoImpact X3?

PhotoImpact bundles with two sister programs. When you install PhotoImpact X3, you also get Corel Painter and MediaOne. CorelPainter Essentials is a very cool, very powerful program that enables you to draw or paint original artwork, or to enhance your photos with painting like effects. With just a few clicks, you can transform your digital snapshots into images that look like classical paintings, watercolors, oil paintings, whatever.

It also includes the MediaOne Plus program for organizing and managing your stored images and photos. It also provides very basic image editing controls like PhotoImpact’s ExpressFix controls – color correction, red eye fix, image rotation, etc. When you install the PhotoImpact program, MediaOne becomes the default image-editing program that automatically launches when you click on a photo on your hard drive. This can be good or bad, but can always be deselected.

The bottom line – if you have a digital camera – or if you want to create cool looking graphics on your Windows computer, you ought to check out the latest version of Photo Impact. Easy enough for use by beginners, it  has almost any whiz bang effect you could want for producing sophisticated looking digital images and projects.