I have used this to put all my papers, business cards,power cords and my Microsoft Surface. It is perfect for visiting clients.

I have used this to put all my papers, business cards,power cords and my Microsoft Surface. It is perfect for visiting clients.

This video editing software offers several improvements over the prior version but still comes up a bit short. Key among the improvements are 64 bit operation and support for 3D and 4K video. This is complex software and the learning curve can be quite steep. The UI feels a bit less intuitive than Premiere and can slow down at times. There are tons and tons of effects and transitions included, although a good percentage of them, including the more technically advanced ones don’t look very good.

This graphics suite consists primarily of CorelDRAW and Corel PhotoPoint. There are a few additional programs, but they are more in the nature of utilities. Both of the content creation programs are excellent. They are top notch and the UI is intuitive and easy to use. The massive, included guide is a great resource as well. There is a considerable overlap in the feature set of this product and Adobe’s and for day to day use it should be a good replacement, especially when taking price into consideration.

This scanning software is ok but nothing special and has several negatives. It works fine but runs rather slow and has an unintuitive interface. It seems mainly designed to convince users to upgrade to one of the more expensive products offered by the company. In addition it installs too many little programs without any explanation as to their function or why they’d need to access the internet. Overall, there are too many drawbacks to this product for it to be recommendable.

WordPerfect is a very good program. It has plenty of features and powerful editing capabilities. WP Office can’t rest on its laurels and massive sales like Office can so it makes it up by pushing the feature set further. In particular, WP is much better at dealing with older documents, including docs from older versions of Office. However, its one drawback is that it isn’t Office and thus there can be incompatabilities with newer formats.

This PDF making software is rather limited in its feature set compared to its competitors. While it isn’t too expensive it lacks quite a few features that are potential dealbreakers such as the ability to make editable forms. The interface wasn’t as intuitive as I’d hoped and could be frustrating when running into the software’s limitations. Its also not lightweight enough for me work as a reader, although it tries to take that spot.

This isn’t the most powerful software but its easy to get started with and a lot of fun. While some familiarity with editing software helps, there is a tutorial movie to help you get started. The feature set is pretty good and lets you do quite a bit but falls short of being a professional product. Its about right for the price and a cheap way to learn animation, but something a user could quickly grow out if they keep working in animation.

Before working with Cyberlink PowerDirector I had not used any Cyberlink software beyond PowerDVD, an old version of which came with a computer I bought years ago. My first exposure to PowerDirector itself was version 10 and I was pleasantly surprised with the program. Version 11 makes some improvements over version 10. My review will focus mainly on version 11 independently. Video editing and production software from most vendors works the same as music editing and production software packages.

When it comes to digital artwork and drawing, Corel Painter is the best product available. It has the best support for drawing tablets, it has the highest quality brushes and it has more features and content than its competition (though there are a few applications out there that have more brushes). With the release of Painter 2015, Corel has upped the bar again. At its heart, Painter is a digital drawing program with a generous set of brushes and content.