TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Graphics Apps - Adobe vs. Corel From:"Roz Ault, Information Technology, X 377" <AULT -at- FAXON -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 6 May 1998 09:47:19 -0400
Regarding text and object editing in Adobe Photoshop:
This is due to be enhanced in Photoshop 5. Here's a description
from the e-newsletter MWJ (with a Mac focus, but applicable to
Windows as well):
* After only ten years, Adobe Photoshop 5.0 adds editable
text. In fact, the new version of the best-selling image editing
software is getting objectified in lots of ways. In current and
earlier versions of Photoshop, completing an operation made any
object into a pixel map - visible and editable, but not something
you could recapture as an object. Text was the best example - once
you put text in an image, it was nothing more than a bunch of
pixels. The only way to change the text would be to revert to a
previous version and apply different text. Some call this
"burning" the object into the pixel map.
Version 5.0 of Photoshop adds more object-like behavior in lots of
places. You can now edit text after it's been "placed" in an
image. What's more, new Layer Effects let you apply shadows,
bevels and other standard effects to objects and have them update
automatically as the objects update. A "History Palette" controls
multiple undo levels, allowing you to pick any previous version of
an image at any time, and even to use a brush to merge two
versions together. A new Magnetic Lasso promises to select objects
in images without the pain of selection today's image editors
require, and there are new layers for the use of "spot colors"
(colors that require their own inks and are not created by
combining cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks - those
combinations are called "process colors"). You can even use ICC
color profiles (although Adobe still doesn't use the term
"ColorSync" even though it applies here) in addition to Adobe's
color management system. Adobe Photoshop 5.0 is coming this month
for both Mac OS and Windows for a retail price of US$995 (upgrades
US$195 until July, US$249 after that). Those who purchased
Photoshop 4.0 after April 1 will get a free upgrade. You can read
_MacWEEK's_ review of the beta version of Photoshop.