Put Your Imagination at Work!

very good
key review info
application features
  • It takes no time at all to construct drawing masterpieces with the impressive number of pre-set lines, fills, transparencies, fonts and Wizard elements that are quickly and conveniently to hand.
  • (1 more, see all...)

The software development industry is widely spreading and has approached various domains, like Accounting, Commerce, Multimedia, Communication, Graphical Design, Publishing and pretty much whatever you may think of. Graphical design and image processing represent an important section in the software development area. This is why the number of graphic editing applications has widely grown in the past years. It's quite difficult to choose from the multitude of available graphic editors exactly the one you want and need. There are programs that simply transform images by rotating, flipping or resizing them, ones that help you batch and rename your pictures, and more advanced ones that also give you the chance to create slide shows, presentations and photo albums.

If you have decided what type of application you want and your list of needed features reads drawing software, vector graphics and animation creator, then you should try Serif DrawPlus. It may prove to be the perfect tool for you.

Even from the start of the application you are given a choice: you can either use a design wizard, create your own drawing, or create an animation. At this moment, you can also view a quick tour of the program or open sample drawings created with Serif DrawPlus, and just by taking a glance at these images you will realize the powerful abilities of the software you have in front.

Use a Design Wizard

This component is suitable for the creation of advertisements or posters, as it provides you with several ready-made templates that you can customize, fitting them with your own needs and preferences. Following the steps of the wizard, you have to specify a name for your advert, the item description and price and also information about your company. The wizards are extremely easy to use, because all you have to do is fill in the requested information.

After pressing the Finish button, you will have the advertisement ready. You can modify at any time the displayed text, the fonts and positions of the graphics. In the right panel of the Serif DrawPlus's main window, you have a series of tabs that enable you to customize various aspects of your drawing. The application provides a wide range of fill patterns, transparency angles and line formats. When you finish editing the picture, you can either save it as a DrawPlus drawing (.dpp), or print it.

Create a Drawing

If you want to simply create a drawing using Serif DrawPlus, you will have to select the page size and orientation, and then you are on your own. You can modify your currently blank drawing however you want. You have the possibility to insert different types of objects: Bitmap images, media clips, Wordpad documents, not to mention the two included wizards: Insert Picture and Insert Border. Again, you can choose, from the library of predefined border designs, the most appropriate for your graphic. The Insert Picture Wizard allows you to aquire an image from a photo CD, from a scanner or from any folder on your computer.

If you want to create a more advanced drawing, Serif DrawPlus offers a layer manager to ensure that you are in control of your graphic components at all time. Among the special features included in the application, you will find the Envelope wizard, which you can use to create special effects for certain objects. Also, you can convert the selected photo to curve, create a contour for it, access the Transform Wizard or the Replicate Wizard.

Create an Animation

The first step in the creation of an animation is, again, choosing the page size. You can choose one of the predefined formats. Serif DrawPlus provides you with many tools and options for the animation creator, also. After deciding on the looks of the first frame, you can clone it in the number of frames you want and, then, start modifying each one in order to get the expected animation effect. You can turn on the Onion Skinning from the Arrange -> Frames menu, so that you will also see the previous frame along with your current one; this way, you will be able to keep control of every move of your graphic elements.

The Frame Properties window is very useful, as it gives you the possibility to specify the type of the current frame. If the frame is Normal, it will simply replace the previous frame in the animation, if its type is Overlay, it will be added on top of the previous one, both being visible, and if the frame type is Background, the frame's content will be visible in all the following frames.

You can also configure the animation properties, such as the number of loops to repeat the animation and the frame display duration. After checking every detail of your animation, you can preview it and, then, export it as an animated GIF image.

The Good

Besides its normal features, Serif DrawPlus also offers an upgrade of the application that contains several advanced features, like Auto Trace, Export Optimizer, Web Preview, Dimension Lines and others. This upgrade is called Serif DrawPlus 6 and you can acquire it for only $9.99. This will surely prove to be useful for the more advanced users.

The Bad

The registration process doesn't always function correctly. Trying to test the application on two different computers, I found myself in the impossibility to register Serif DrawPlus on the second system. Considering that this only happened once and I have tested the application multiple times since then without problems, we may assume that it was a temporary problem and you shouldn't face it in the future.

The Truth

Serif DrawPlus is suitable both for novices and advanced users, providing an intuitive and easy-to-use interface and many powerful features for professional graphical editing. You can use it to create adverts or posters, various drawings or funny animations. No matter which one you choose, Serif DrawPlus will fulfill your expectations. Best of all, it's free... So, give it a try and put your imagination at work in order to create some beautiful drawings and animations.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 3
features 4
ease of use 3
pricing / value 5


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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