Screensavers used to be a necessity back in the days, when we were all using CRTs (cathode ray tubes). They would preserve the image quality of the computer display by filling the screen with moving images or patterns when the computer was not in use.

Nowadays, their purpose is purely entertaining. You can create nice waterfall effects or birds chirping in the trees. The next software is design to apply effects to the pictures on your computer. The name of the application is Nature Illusion Studio and its developer is Nufsoft. The software is almost brand new as it has reached only version 1.52. The software is free for evaluation for a period of 30 days.

When I first opened the application I thought that it is one of those programs I have to spit my brains out in order to figure all the options. But the interface is easy to use and skill level is not a must. Before anything else opens, you have to choose your work: create a new project, open an existing one, one of the samples provided by the software or one of the recent projects (if there are any).

The largest area of the window is occupied by the workspace. In the left side there are the Effects and Water Mask options and at the lower left side of the application window you will find the Navigator window (very useful when you want to zoom in the picture and focus on a certain area).

In the toolsbar above the workspace the user will be provided with options like Build Scr, Build Exe, Build Video and Build Gif. I guess the names of the features say everything. Yes, the software can be used to create AVI files and .gif files.

In the Water Mask window there are four figures coated with different colors, a pen and a slider for sizing the pen. The little bucket in there is actually the Fill tool. The masks have different colors to differentiate between the water effects you want to apply to the picture. Each water mask stores the defined parameters separately and applies a separate water effect. Thus one of the masks is used for emulating waterfall effect, another for lake effect, another one for creating ocean effect.

The effects you can add to your picture are for water, weather, objects and sound. In Water if you click on the Preset button and choose Load you can select the type of water effects you need: ocean, calm ocean, river, waterfalls, lake, water ripple, etc. The options in here are for amplitude, frequency, ripple effect, distortion and direction.

The Weather Effects shelters three options: rain, snow and none. Here you can set the opacity, the number of particles, the wind and the length (but this is only for the rain effect, for the snow the options are limited to particle count, speed and opacity).

The Objects menu allows you to introduce more elements in the landscape, any picture you have on your computer that is in one of the following formats: .jpg, .gif, .wmf, .emf, .ico, .dib or .bmp. The Sounds will add more "color" to your scenery by enriching it with audio. You can insert any WAV file on your computer and configure it to loop continuously, to randomly occur between a specified time interval or to occur every specified time.

That is about it on the tools and options of the software. But the features of the application are something else. After you have finished with your landscape you can preview your work and then save it on your computer. If you think that your work is suited for a screensaver than all you have to do is click the Build Scr button in the toolsbar, name it and choose the output folder, choose if you want background music (and set it) or to include the sound effects and press Build.

Almost the same steps are to be taken if you want to save your work as an executable file. For AVI or GIF saving you will have to provide the software with the framerate and size.

The Good

The software is easy to work with and the final results are pretty good. All you need is a little patience to apply the masks correctly.

The Bad

Some file formats like .png and .mp3 are not supported by the software, but I am sure that future versions will right this wrong.

The Truth

I enjoyed working with this software and the effects are really amazing. And when you have the option of adding sounds, then the image is complete.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: