| Guide Rating and Review | ||||||||
We have a winner. With a few minor caveats, The Big Box of Art from Hemera Technologies is an awesome collection of clip art, illustrations, photos, and photographic objects that will enhance any desktop publishing collection. The 180,000 vector clip art images come in many styles from cartoon to realistic to stylized. There are also thousands of textures, black & white raster illustrations, color and black & white photographs, and a selection of textured photos. These photos have had various filters or textures applied for special effects. The 5,000 Hemera Photo-Objects are a great feature. These are photographs of everyday objects with their backgrounds removed. If you've ever attempted to cut out the background in a photograph you'll appreciate the work that's been done for you with Photo-Objects. See my review of Photo-Objects Volumes I & II for a closer look at using this special type of image. While all these images can be used for print or modified for Web use, there is also a selection of Web graphics plus 500 animations. Image categories range from Agriculture to Home to Travel & Tourism. The number and quality of images is important, of course, but just as important is the ability to find the right image for your needs and get it into your application. The Big Box of Art has an easy-to-use image catalog and export utility that makes it a snap. The biggest drawback is switching out the 22 CDs that contain all the images. View small thumbnails of all images right from your hard drive. Insert the specified CD to view a larger thumbnail. Sort images by category or type or use the keyword search to find just the right piece of artwork. When you do a keyword search you'll see a list of matching images by name, category, keywords, CD, and type of image (vector, etc.). Even without looking at the thumbnails, reading the other keywords for each image can help narrow your choices. Highlight a name in the list and the corresponding thumbnail is highlighted.
There are basically four ways to export images from The Big Box of Art into your application. Simply find the one that works for your chosen application and that is most comfortable for you. 1. Export Wizard. Double-click the image to open Export Wizard (Windows) or Export Assistant (Mac). You'll see the image and several options asking how you'll be using the image. For example, choose SLIDE PRESENTATION software and select Microsoft PowerPoint, Corel Presentation, Lotus Freelance Graphics, or Harvard Graphics format. Or, choose to EXPORT the image to a popular image format. The Export Wizard allows you to resize the image, select a resolution, flip the image, choose a background color, and choose a variety of appropriate formats. 2. Drag-n-Drop. From the viewer drag the thumbnail to your desktop (Windows), the Finder (Mac) or into your application document. 3. Copy/Paste. Click on the thumbnail. Select Copy in the Edit menu. Select Paste from within your application to bring up the Export Wizard. For the Drag-n-Drop and Copy/Paste methods the image defaults to whatever format you have selected under Edit > Preferences for each operation. In my experiments there were some programs that required a specific format in order for the operation to work and at other times the operation took a few extra steps for some graphics formats. You'll need to determine which formats are supported by your most-used applications. 4. Save to Hard Drive. Select the thumbnail and choose Save As in the File Menu. There are a variety of graphics formats from which to choose. A separate utility called PhotoFont Maker fills your fonts with photos from the collection or your own images. Simply type your text in your desired font then select a photo texture. Your choices are reflected in a window at the bottom. You then have all the same export options as with the clip art and photos. You can create some fun text effects this way. The only drawback is that the tiling effect cannot be modified. The only true weaknesses I found in The Big Box of Art were in the bonus software applicatons: CD Designs Creator and Greeting Card Creator. Bonus software should be a 'value added' feature. I found only a slight added value in these programs. Due, perhaps to a conflict, I was unable to run the programs successfully on my main computer running Windows 98. On a backup computer, also running Windows 98 the programs worked quite nicely. If you have no other program for creating cards and invitations, the Greeting Card Creator is a nice touch. There are plenty of templates and some creative tools. One caveat: The Help file does not match the program and there is no printed manual. Specifically, the text editing features are not addressed in the Help file. However, the program works the same as the CD Designs Creator and its Help file has the missing information. While Hemera Support responded promptly to my support requests, the issues weren't really worth my time to pursue in depth. Unless a program is critical to my work, I don't waste time jumping through hoops to get it working — I move on to applications that are less finicky. Don't let this deter you from considering this collection. As I mentioned above, on another system the programs performed well. The images in The Big Box of Art are either owned by Hemera or licensed from a third party. They are, however, royalty-free. In general, the primary usage restrictions are on resell or distribution of individual images or portions of the collection. A copyright notice reflecting joint ownership of the images (you and Hemera) is required on electronic or digital work, such as when images are incorporated into a Web site design. I heartily recommend The Big Box of Art for the 350,000 quality images and the powerful search. The $29.95US recommended retail price is another huge plus. Minimum System Requirements: The Macintosh version contains 215,000 images including 10,000 Hemera Photo-Objects. It contains no bonus software but does have a 750-page image catalog. Suggested Retail: $69.99US.
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