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PhotoFrame
Another winner from Extensis
by Jim Alley
This is cool. PhotoFrame is one of those utilities that is completely intuitive yet
powerful; it serves a clear purpose, and charts a straight line to achieve that purpose.
As a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop (or PhotoDeluxe) that allows you to create an unlimited
variety of image frames and border effects, PhotoFrame serves a limited but popular
purpose. This is the kind of thing that Extensis excels at. PhotoFrame is the latest
in Extensis' line of powerful add-ons to industry-standard graphics applications
like Photoshop, Illustrator, FreeHand, QuarkXPress, PageMaker, and others.
The steps in using PhotoFrame are easy: Select a frame and then use PhotoFrame's
intuitive yet powerful controls to adjust the opacity, color, degree of blur, and
more. The frame can be rotated, flipped, and resized; and the effect is previewed
practically instantly. See the illustration on this page to get an idea of how the
interface looks.
Up to three frames can be used at the same time. PhotoFrame uses a Photoshop layer-like
approach: individual frames can be turned off or on, and their stacking order can
be rearranged by dragging their names up or down in the list.
The options and features are manifold. To name just a few: Controls can be applied
to either the border (frame) or the background (picture). There are 24 zoom levels.
Multiple Undo/Redo -- as many as you need. Background processing means that PhotoFrame
is using idle time to calculate final effects, making the program incredibly speedy.
A Navigator pop-up helps when you are zoomed in, but stays out of sight when you
don't need it. Effects can be saved and reapplied to other images. PhotoFrame even
has an eyedropper so that you can "pick up" colors from the original
picture.
PhotoFrame blasts its closest competitor (Auto F/X Photo/Graphic Edges) out of the
water on all counts, from price through features to speed. Furthermore, PhotoFrame's
format is open, meaning that you can use edge effects from competing products or
even create your own.
Two volumes of frames are available. The estimated street price for PhotoFrame and
either Volume 1 or Volume 2 is $129, but the entire bundle can be purchased for $199.
Volume 1 consists of frames that an artist might create by hand. There are categories
such as brush, canvas, charcoal, tape, wood block, various camera edges, and more.
These tend toward the organic, whereas Volume 2 contains frames that are more synthetic:
digital and geometric.
PhotoFrame also ships with a demo version of Portfolio, Extensis' popular media cataloging
program. This allows you to browse hundreds of frames easily. When you find one you
like, you can simply drag its thumbnail into PhotoFrame's work area. Portfolio catalogs
can be searched visually or by keyword. (A full discussion of Portfolio is beyond
the scope of this review; for more details, see our review of Portfolio in the April
1998 Mac Monitor.) A visual catalog of frames is also printed in the back of the
PhotoFrame manual.
by Jim Alley
Jim Alley is the Editor of Mac Monitor, a columnist for Print magazine, and Professor
of Graphic Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
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