CompuServe Thread

#What a Waste of $400

4 messages in this thread
#837From: Mike JacoubowskyJun 10, 1992 2:33 AM
Dave: Wow! Your experiences with Corel certainly do not match mine. I have found Corel Draw (version 2.01) to be fantastic at cleaning up scanned artwork plus much more. Not sure what's going on for you. It did take awhile for me to figure everything out, but overall I'd say Corel Draw is much easier to use than other products I've tried. Also curious…do you have a bike shop, and where? My brother and I own Chain Reaction Bicycles in Redwood City, CA. –Mike–
#839From: Dave CanelsteinJun 10, 1992 4:18 AM
I dont own a bike shop. Part of our logo is an artists rendition of an old stle big wheeled bike but with a high tech video look to it. Do you real do serious work in Corel? The kind of work whos quality can go into an add in a National Magazine? Please be honest, i own lots of software thats fun and like you and others ive taken my computer interest way past the office. —-Dave—-
#889From: David MakulecJun 10, 1992 4:18 PM
Dave– Hi, from another Dave. Yes, Corel can generate professional-quality work. Folks do it all the time. I'm sure you can see from the answers you've gotten that lots of folks feel the same way. But experience and patience are the best teachers. I myself can't generate some of the greatest work I've seen done with Corel, because I don't have complete mastery of all the tools yet. The program is *not* magic, as others have also suggested. Trace simply provides you with a way to *convert* your bitmap to vectors, as well as possible; then it's up to you to make the rest happen. You've already gotten good advice on how to proceed. Once it's done, the results *are* without the "jaggies" that you get from bitmaps, regardless of any scaling or distortion you may apply to the new vector image. So: YES, the program does what it says; you just have to learn how to do it. And NO, the program is not a paperweight–in my opinion, the money I spent on Corel was one of the best software investments I ever made. The upgrade to 3.0 will be well worth the price to registered users (although I'll get a better break than some, for having bought the BlockBuster version at the right time <g>). But most importantly: a *new* Corel purchaser will now get a simply astonishing variety of new capabilities in a single package, plus improvements on all the old ones, even though Corel actually *reduced* the price of the software. If that's not good value for your dollar, I don't know what is. Hope your patience returns, and your logo becomes a beautiful bouquet of vectors. It's worth it–and it's serious stuff. –Dave Makulec
#1011From: Louis FoussardJun 11, 1992 1:20 PM
Dave… Thought I'd jump in here. >>> Do you real do serious work in Corel? The kind of work whos quality >>> can go into an add in a National Magazine? Please be honest, YOU BET!!! I'm being real honest – Seriously!! OK? I produce professional quality ads, brochures, etc. (both color and B & W) on a daily / weekly basis… The quality is BETTER than those I was producing a few years back with traditional methods… (not just my opinion – my clients pay more money for them too) and I do it in much less time… and I do some things for about $50 – 75 in hard dollar final film / production costs, that would otherwise typically cost many HUNDREDS of dollars in camera work, etc. And even with that, I'll still put my final production work up against traditional production methods any day of the week. And I'll be done in half the time too. <smile> Now, not all of my stuff does end up in national publications <g> – I'm workin' at it… <grin> (More importantly – they could have.) Maybe you can tell… I kinda like the program. The fact of the matter is, CorelDRAW! alone is responsible for over 50% of my gross business income. Take a long hard look at its capabilities. You won't be disappointed. Hope this helps. The Best to you… Louie