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Microsoft Graphics Software

MS Unveils Beta of New Image Editing Program 492

Posted by Zonk from the another-market-to-conquer dept.
docdude316 writes "CNET is running a story about Microsoft's new photo editing software, Acrylic. The new program is based on Expression, which Microsoft purchased in 2003. From the article: 'Microsoft describes the software--currently available as a 77MB free download--as bringing together pixel-based painting and vector graphics features. These capabilities will put the product squarely in the market currently dominated by software maker Adobe Systems with its pixel-focused Photoshop and vector-driven Illustrator products. Acrylic appears to support opening and exporting to Photoshop and Illustrator file formats, as well as other standard graphics formats. In addition, the application appears to be able to export to Adobe's Portable Document Format, or PDF.'
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MS Unveils Beta of New Image Editing Program More

MS Unveils Beta of New Image Editing Program

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  • M$ is really on a tear today... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:17PM (#12782019)


    <sarcasm>
    First a music subscription service [slashdot.org], and now this...M$ is a vertiable fountain of innovation.
    <sarcasm>

    Damnit, Microsoft! You're like that kid on the playground who always wanted someone else's toy, just because someone else had them.
    If you don't quit bullying the other kids, Microsoft, no one is going to want to play with you.

    • Re:M$ is really on a tear today... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hey, if they make a better product, more power to them. It's just going to be hard to do. First, Adobe products are more or less the industry standard, with a specific demographic with specific goals and interests.

      What was telling about the linked article is that people are having such a bad reaction to it. Granted, we all know that Microsoft can operate on the scale of years when they want a market, but unveiling a poorly polished offering seems like a bad idea if they're aiming to capture the pro de

    • Re:M$ is really on a tear today... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Juvenall ( 793526 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:36PM (#12782270) Homepage
      Taking one idea and using it yourself is a cornerstone of capitalism. So I don't understand why you're basing Microsoft for doing what every other business has done throughout human history. It's really like saying "Oh, don't buy a Ford because they didn't invent the car."

    • Re:M$ is really on a tear today... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:36PM (#12782279)
      I thought the general concensus on this board is that competition of software products is a good thing which makes *all* the products better, or am I mistaken? (At least, that's the viewpoint people give when others complain about Linux having a whole bunch of different widget libraries and thousands of text editors.)

      But as usual, it sums up as "if you don't like it, don't use it." Why insult Microsoft for making it? Why not think positively and stop being so cynical for once?

      Sure, maybe it can't compete with Photoshop, ok. What about Photoshop Elements? What about Corel Painter? Maybe it'll help make ALL those products better by introducing a new interface idea or unique type of filter. Who knows?
      • Well, actually I'm concerned with the fact that this product is going to be distributed for free and will probably end up by being integrated in Windows.

        I'm not sure it would be very good for what you call 'competition'.

        But maybe that's just me...

      • I thought the general concensus on this board is that competition of software products is a good thing which makes *all* the products better, or am I mistaken?

        Microsoft does not generally compete. They have a monopoly so they make products that "compete" with people in other markets, except MS bundles theirs into Windows. That way they just raise the price of Windows and everyone that buys Windows is forced to buy it. In this way the bypass normal market pressures that drive competition. They don't ha

    • Re:M$ is really on a tear today... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:38PM (#12782304)
      Damnit, Microsoft! You're like that kid on the playground who always wanted someone else's toy, just because someone else had them. If you don't quit bullying the other kids, Microsoft, no one is going to want to play with you.

      Right! Because, before PhotoShop came along, no one had ever produced a paint program before...

      The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

    • Re:M$ is really on a tear today... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:48PM (#12782426) Homepage
      This is intriguing. Work with me for a second here, OK?

      Mozilla for example is based on ideas, technology and a codebase developed by Netscape. How does Mozilla innovate?

      Open source did not create IM, but they copied it to death. How does Jabber and the lot innovate?

      MySQL is "ripping off" established commercial databases now, putting in innovative things like stored procedures, views and UFDs. Does MySQL innovate?

      The GiMP is a Photoshop ripp-off, so much so that with every new version of PS the GiMP developers have rushed to provide their own substandard "alternatives" to some PS features. Does the GiMP innovate?

      KDE has always looked like Windows. They copied the taskbar, the start menu, the tray notification area and so on. Does that mean that KDE does not innovate?

      • Re:M$ is really on a tear today... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by salesgeek ( 263995 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @02:47PM (#12783183) Homepage
        Some software projects are new ideas. Otheres are implemenatations designed to solve the same problem as another package, but perhaps do it differently or to reduce a high price created by an artificial monopoly. You are not correct though to paint open source as "not innovative".

        Exaples of packages that owe their existance to economics:

        Linux - duplicates function of Unix at lower cost.
        Gimp - provides essential function of Photoshop for web designers and UI designers.
        MySQL - very good database without the bill.

        Examples of packages that innovate and carve out new ideas:

        Gnutella and other P2P software
        Sendmail, fetchmail, NNTPD, Apache, etc...
        PHP, Python, Ruby (sorry if I left out your favorite)
        EMACS and other editors
        Inkscape and other SVG tools
        Zope, Mambo and other CMS / Web application frameworks

        MySQL is "ripping off" established commercial databases now, putting in innovative things like stored procedures, views and UFDs. Does MySQL innovate

        Another open source product does have substantial capital in the creation of SQL... Postgress. Which leads to a simple comment: Open Source drives an incredible ammount of invention in the computer science field and in the software development tools arena - and always has.

        KDE has always looked like Windows. They copied the taskbar, the start menu, the tray notification area and so on.

        Incidentally, KED looks like windows if you want it too. KDE has always been spectacularly flexible in its ability to look like what the user wants. Like all desktops, KDE has borrowed the good and tried ways to do better. Other desktop/window managers have tried to be highly original like enlightment and blackbox.

        Software is as software does.
    • Really now. The bread and butter of Microsoft's marketing department has long been about providing a suite of applications that play well together. Furthermore, the lack of a decent graphics editor has been a rather glaring hole in Microsoft's product line. And lastly, this ought to spice up the image editing market a bit. To this point, there's really only been Photoshop on the high end, Paint Shop Pro on the low end, and the Gimp for the open source enthusiast. This will put some long overdue price p

  • Nice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by daniil ( 775990 ) * <evilbj8rn@hotmail.com> on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:18PM (#12782030) Journal
    I downloaded the beta yesterday and installed it on my home box. I must say that I was quite impressed, especially with the usability (especially when compared to Gimp). It was a bit slow on my 800 mhz Pentium III, though. Even though I doubt that Microsoft will conquer this market, it's still nice to finally see some real competition to Photoshop, especially considering that the price of Acrylic will be much lower than that of Photoshop.

    • Re:Nice (Score:4, Informative)

      by computechnica ( 171054 ) <`PCGURU' `at' `COMPUTECHNICA.com'> on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:21PM (#12782078) Homepage Journal
      It's funny it requires Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2. Sorry M$, GIMP and Photoshop run just fine on my WIN2k boxes.

      • Re:Nice (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ncmusic ( 31531 )
        What's your point? Why Gimp requiresd GTK+ 2.4. Shame on M$ for requiring the newest version of their operating system for new software!

        • Re:Nice (Score:3, Insightful)

          by julesh ( 229690 )
          Well, yes. Unless there are valid technical reasons for it (which seems unlikely), then the only reason for doing it is to tie sales of Acrylic into additional XP sales. This is dubious behaviour, and if they do manage to gain a significant portion of the market share in image editors could open them up to further legal action under the EU anti-competitive business practices legislation.

          IANAL, etc.
      • It's funny it requires Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2. Sorry M$, GIMP and Photoshop run just fine on my WIN2k boxes.

        I saw nothing in the article about it requiring Windows XP.


    • ...it's still nice to finally see some real competition to Photoshop, especially considering that the price of Acrylic will be much lower than that of Photoshop.

      Well, I doubt that Acrylic's price can beat the Gimp...

      Seriously, though, what do you have against the Gimp? I'm impressed as hell every time I use it, and I'm a fairly heavy Photoshop user (although it is common knowledge that I do impress easily... :P )

      • I, too, was very impressed with the GIMP when I used it. The fact that they managed to duplicate most of the functionality of photoshop in a free and open source project just blows my mind. That being said, I would still take photoshop any day of the week. It's not that I have anything really against it - I'm sure it's a great product if you learn to use it. The reason I don't use it though, is that I find the user interface to be incredibly awkward. When I'm using a program to create graphics, I want

    • Re:Nice (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TheOldFart ( 578597 )

      it's still nice to finally see some real competition to Photoshop

      How can you call it real competition when the thing is being pushed, I mean, given for free? Doesn't this sound a bit like IE and every other market segment Microsoft crushes by baiting with free stuff?

      • Re:Nice (Score:3, Informative)

        by bcattwoo ( 737354 )
        How can you call it real competition when the thing is being pushed, I mean, given for free? Doesn't this sound a bit like IE and every other market segment Microsoft crushes by baiting with free stuff?

        The free beta version "expires" October 1, 2005. Someone may figure a way around that, but it suggests that MS probably does not intend to give away the release version.

      • Re:Nice (Score:4, Insightful)

        by krelian ( 525362 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @02:29PM (#12782983)
        So would you prefer them to put a price on it
        for the sake of being competitive ?

        Sometimes it seems to me that even if M$ will go out tomorrow and open up windows as OSS, people here will come and complain how this is some way bad and evil.

        I am not saying that M$ is jesus reborn but come on,
        put some sense into it.

      • BETA, BETA, BETA! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
        Wait, it's a free beta.

        I hate "M$" as much as the next guy but at least they aren't charging people to test beta software anymore. Like the other Microsoft image software, this will eventually cost money. Of course it maybe bundled with your next digital camera, copy of Office or drawing tablet, but someone is going to buy a license.

        As far as I know, the only Microsoft image software that is "Free" is MS Paint. On top of that, as someone else pointed out, this only runs on XP. Why? Because error reporting
    • Does anyone know if it support the various intricate RAW formats? If so, how current is its support?

    • Portable (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:35PM (#12782249)
      it's still nice to finally see some real competition to Photoshop, especially considering that the price of Acrylic will be much lower than that of Photoshop.

      True, if some competition brings the price of Photoshop down a few pegs then that would be nice. Still, one is left hoping that this isn't the beginnign of "Operation kill Adobe". Photoshop may be expensive but at least it is available on more platforms than just Windows.

      • Re:Portable (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jimicus ( 737525 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:41PM (#12782329)

        Photoshop may be expensive
        It is expensive. But it's not intended for Joe Bloggs cropping the crappy little images he makes with his £90 digital camera.

        I will be very surprised if this has significant impact on Adobe's core market.

    • Re:Nice (Score:2, Interesting)

      by zwei2stein ( 782480 )
      Riiight ... because Photoshop has no real competition .... except, um Corel Photopaint (superior in usability), Paint Shop Pro (superior in price) and ton of other programs, including metioned Gimp (unbeatable price), Xara, Scetcher ...

      and so we need someone to show this market that monopoly ends HERE, and so MS will be our saviour and it will change lots of things to better
    • I downloaded the beta yesterday and installed it on my home box. I must say that I was quite impressed, especially with the usability (especially when compared to Gimp).

      I don't get why everybody thinks the GIMP has a bad UI. I think that its UI is just different. It isn't necessarily better or worse than the UI for any other image editor. Its just different. You'd think that people who read slashdot would be more accepting of applications that want to use their own interface, because that's what they
    • I'm sure the beta contains all the debugging stuff, so I doubt that speed is representative of the final product. Microsoft will conquer the market if they want to. GIMP has no OEM distributors or marketing, so it won't be busting out any time soon. Adobe needs to plan and market for distribution, so that cost is in the product. Microsoft can just mandate that the software comes on all new PCs. Guess which one will be ubiquitous five years from now.

      There really needs to be a GPL-ed "web graphics" suite tha

  • Adobemedia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tverbeek ( 457094 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:19PM (#12782050) Homepage
    So maybe there's something to the notion that Adobe bought Macromedia (who also have an hybrid vector/bitmap graphics program) as a defensive move against Microsoft.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:20PM (#12782055)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Linux? (Score:2, Funny)

    by acd294 ( 685183 )
    Where can I download the linux tarball?

  • screenshots (Score:3, Interesting)

    by professorhojo ( 686761 ) * on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:20PM (#12782062)
    anyone got any screenshots? i do'nt wanna have to download & install this pig just to see what it looks like. :(

  • Office (Score:3, Insightful)

    by linuxci ( 3530 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:20PM (#12782063)
    This can export to PDF? I'd have thought it more useful for them to add this feature to MS Office. Hopefully that feature will follow.

    • Re:Office (Score:5, Informative)

      by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:24PM (#12782117)
      This can export to PDF? I'd have thought it more useful for them to add this feature to MS Office. Hopefully that feature will follow.

      Any windows application can export to PDF via the miracle of PDFCreator [sourceforge.net].

      Not as fast as an Oo.o export to PDF, but export to PDF is hardly a world-shattering feature.

      • I know, I meant the built in functionality. I know a lot of people don't know about PDFcreator and pay a fortune for the full version of acrobat just for this functionality
      • Ah, you got there first. Nothing quite like the dumbfounded expression of a supervisor being told that "no, you didn't actually need to buy Acrobat Pro to make a PDF version of that spreadsheet".

        --grendel drago

    • This can export to PDF? I'd have thought it more useful for them to add this feature to MS Office. Hopefully that feature will follow.

      Don't hold your breath. With Longhorn MS announced they are introducing a new, competing format to PDF that will "open." Which i believe is MS speak for completely closed and a way to lock everyone in to our formats even more. I bet Word will export to the new MS-PDF instead. The sad thing is, PDF won't stand a chance and will be destroyed in all but the high-end marke

  • Just doesn't have the same ring to it. I bet it's a trap.

  • Not even JPEG (Score:5, Insightful)

    by n0mad6 ( 668307 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:21PM (#12782083)
    From TFA:

    However, Microsoft noted Acrylic would not currently save pixel-type data to formats other than its native XPR file type.

    Being able to save as PDF is great and all, but it looks like this thing still has a ways to go before being useful.

    • That's really dumb, too; it wouldn't really take them any work to support raster export into the PDF. You can just put the bytes of a JPEG into a PDF, mark it as JPG, and let Acrobat Reader handle the rest.

    • Re:Not even JPEG (Score:5, Informative)

      by RaboKrabekian ( 461040 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:43PM (#12782356) Journal
      You can save to JPG, GIF, TIF, etc by using the export feature. It would be nice to have them in the save as dialog, but it's not like they'r enot there at all. When you do a File/Save, all you get is XPR. Everything else is under export.

      I don't see the problem here.

    • Re:Not even JPEG (Score:2, Interesting)

      by BadMrMojo ( 767184 )
      As a production monkey at a firm which gets a lot of logos and what not from various clients, let me be the first to just say, "I'm fucked."

      If anyone in a mid-level administrative position actually gets this (ie: it's bundled with their next machine), it will make my life a living hell.

      Try explaining nicely to the client that their .xpr file is neither a high-res, uncompressed raster image nor a vector image, but rather an crappy, anti-aliased 72 dpi gif saved in a proprietary format (that no one using a
    • Uhh...try export.

  • Not exactly... (Score:5, Informative)

    by DigitlDud ( 443365 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:25PM (#12782131)
    This is not a rival to Adobe products, definetly not Photoshop. It's primarily a vector graphics program with some unique features in that area. It was orignally a program Creative House Expressions which Microsoft bought in 2003.

    "Creature House Expression (formerly Fractal Design Expression) is a vector-based drawing tool featuring "skeletal strokes," a 2D drawing primitive which offers complete editability and scalability."
    http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/illustration/gr/e xpression.htm [about.com]

    This new Acrylic beta is essential version 4 of that program.

    Giving the timing of the release of a program that Microsoft had seemingly killed off years ago. I'd say they were planing to use it for vector creation in Avalon.

  • GOLD from the product's forum (Score:5, Funny)

    by professorhojo ( 686761 ) * on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:25PM (#12782134)
    from unhappy almost-user
    - "what? this won't work under Windows 2000? :( it took me over 2 hours to download! oh well - maybe next time"

    from Annie, Beta Coordinator:
    - Well don't make this sound like good bye. This is still the Expression newsgroup so E3'ers can post too. Do I even have a chance at talking you into getting WinXP? :-) I love XP! It never crashes, never gives me grief, nothing. It plays nice!
  • AFAIK, Corel Photo-Paint does already "bring together pixel-based painting and vector graphics features".

  • Does this mean ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by KSobby ( 833882 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:27PM (#12782153)
    Does this mean that Microsoft has finally thrown in the towel on further MS Paint development and innovation?
    • coffee + your post = mess on keybaord. :-))))

      in related news: "MS SQL Server! from the company that brought you Cardfile!"
    • Yes, the overwhelming stream of innovations we've been seeing in MS Paint in the past few years will soon come to an end. MS might also stop its heavy development of the feature-rich Notepad.exe, so you can forget about all the extra word wrap options you had been hoping for. They got those programs almost perfect, then abandoned them. I'm losing faith ...
  • From TFA:
    "A Microsoft representative was not available to comment on Acrylic's final release date or a retail price."

    You mean to tell me, in a company with about a billion dollars in marketing, and lord knows how many marketing staffers, that they couldn't find ONE person to tell us these things? C'mon ;)

  • What!? (Score:4, Funny)

    by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:28PM (#12782173) Journal
    Microsoft Paint ought to be enough for anybody!

  • Sigh. Not All Software Has To Innovate (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:30PM (#12782206) Homepage Journal
    Lots of comments already about how MS isn't innovating. Of course they aren't. Neither was Open Office, Gimp, Firefox, etc. Not all software needs to be innovative to be successful. It just needs to be as good or better than alternatives, or fit a niche market that isn't filled already.

    Since the market for graphics programs is filled already, MS needs to make this at least as good as Gimp and Photoshop for it to be successful. Since this is only a beta, only time will tell if they've done that.

    Besides, I thought having choices was a good thing? Once MS starts unfairly competing in the graphics program industry, then start complaining about it. Until then, this is a good thing.

      • Re:Sigh. Not All Software Has To Innovate (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @02:00PM (#12782589) Homepage Journal
        It has features and methodology that make it an innovator, but it's still just a web browser with tabs and plugins. There were other tabbed browsers before Firefox came along.

        In the same way, Acrylic may have some interesting features that are innovations over what Photoshop or Gimp had, but it's still just a graphics program.

        If you want to consider Firefox an innovator, then you need to consider every Microsoft product one as well, since all of them have extended the features of their predecessors in some way. I'd prefer to refer to none of them as innovators unless the program as a whole is completely unlike anything before it.

    • Re:Sigh. Not All Software Has To Innovate (Score:4, Insightful)

      by K8Fan ( 37875 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:18PM (#12785492) Journal
      Lots of comments already about how MS isn't innovating.

      Anyone who says that has never been to SIGGRAPH. Microsoft's Graphics Research Group has some of the finest minds of CG in one place. Not sure who's there now, but at one time they had Alvy Ray Smith, Jim Blinn, Andrew Glassner, and a host of other top minds. They routinely produce as many or more papers on basic research as any commercial entity, SGI included. If I recall correctly, they hired Alvy by buying Altamira, which had a program that was doing amazing things with the alpha channel when Photoshop was pretty much useless for compositing.

      Since the market for graphics programs is filled already, MS needs to make this at least as good as Gimp and Photoshop for it to be successful. Since this is only a beta, only time will tell if they've done that.

      As good as? This assumes that one thinks Photoshop and it's open-source clone are all that good in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, Photoshop's popularity has stalled development in the image editing field. People think that the way things are done in Photoshop are the only way things should be done. The Gimp? It's nice to have a "free Photoshop", but like too many open source projects, it doesn't actually innovate, just immitate (yeah, go ahead...mod me down...you know it's true).

      I've been observing paint systems since the Quantel Paintbox and AT&T TIPS, and quite honestly, the rate of innovation in image editing and painting has been in a steady decline since the very first programs produced a flowering of innovations. It's taken new platforms like the Macintosh and the Amiga to produce change, and frankly we've not seen one of those since BeOS.

      I'm happy to see MS try something new. Somebody has to.

  • They tried something like this five or so years ago, and met with little success. I don't think they'll have much luck trying to dislodge Photoshop from it's current position this time, either.

    They might have a little luck going after Photoshop Elements users, but I doubt it.

    Adobe would need to really screw up for a solid decade like Quark did for a competing product to have much of a chance in the marketplace. The economics of software for use by professionals is very different from that of that for en
  • This is something Microsoft is likely doing to compete with Apple, not Adobe. They've realized that while they have the business lock-in with Office, Apple is getting the home lock-in with iLife. We just saw earlier that they're going after iTunes and ITMS. Now they're going after iPhoto.
    • Now they're going after iPhoto.

      Acrylic and iPhoto are in two totally different marketspaces. MS's new app is designed to be a modern day "SuperPaint" and will compete with Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter, etc. iPhoto is mostly focused on image file tweaking and organization, similar to what iTunes does with music files. Now, if Apple's planning on adding a Paint/Draw module to iWork, then that app might be what Acrylic might be competing against someday...

  • Why is MS allowed to purchase so many companies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mgpeter ( 132079 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:41PM (#12782336) Homepage
    Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, why on earth do the courts allow them to snatch up all of the companies that they are buying ?

    Granted Image Editing is not terribly important, but when you realize they purchased Antivirus and Anti-Adware companies......They are going to use their market muscle (monopoly) to create a subscription based model, all pre-installed with any and every new computer.

    They should have broke that company up.
  • Expression, formerly by Creature House, is an amazing image package. The "natural media" capabilities it has are combined with infinitely editable vectors, very responisive. You can create extemely complex images with a few lines. CH had an (IIRC) in-house only version that did animation using the same engines. I'd give my CTRL pinky for updated software like that, with the animation. Definitely looking forward to playing with Acrylic. Thanks Uncle Bill. (c'mon, credit where credit is due)

    Josh

  • But will it run on OS X on Intel?!?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thumpnugget ( 142707 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:56PM (#12782522)
    Yeah, but I think the question we all really want to know is: will this run on one of Apple's new Macs running on an Intel chip running on Windows inside of Wine via Mac OS X's BSD compatibility layer?

    Because even though the new Macs haven't been released yet, I just don't know if I can jump on board this Acrylic wagon unless they can promise me that kind of support.

  • From the FAQ, referenced on the Acrylic page:

    What are some of the features available in the Acrylic product?

    Acrylic is a professional illustration, painting, and graphic design product. For a complete list of features please download and install the Acrylic Beta, and then refer to the accompanying release notes document which covers in detail the principal capabilities of the application.

    I don't know about others, but I don't think I've ever downloaded anything without first knowing what the fe

  • It seems Acrylic does not require Win XP SP2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by zero0w ( 572225 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @01:58PM (#12782556)

    If you check the Yahoo! Expression3 mailing list [yahoo.com] (Yahoo! registration required), it seems that you can get around the installer by unpacking the file and install Acrylic on pre-SP2 machines including Windows 2000. Running the installer, however, would detect your system and prevent it from installing on pre-SP2 machines on purpose; so it may just be another lure for you to install SP2 =( .

    Also, Expression 3.3 (click the Previous Versions [microsoft.com] on the Acrylic project page) can run under Linux with WINE:

    http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=expression3 [frankscorner.org]

  • Absolutely floored (Score:3, Interesting)

    by British ( 51765 ) <british1500@gmail.com> on Friday June 10, 2005 @02:21PM (#12782888) Homepage Journal
    I took an image of danica mckellar(winnie cooper...wonder years) from her stuff photoshoot.

    While screwing aroud with the selection tool, I decided to use the mark region in/out. so I drew a few crude circles around her body(which has contrast against the white pillows, but she has varying skintones+black), and was absolutley floored.

    With a few crude circlings around Danica, it got the clue, and selected ONLY her. PERFECTLY clean selection lines around her.

    Amazing!

    And I shoulnd't be saying this since I work for a competitor to this!

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