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I really like Ohanaware's flagship Funtastic Photos image editing software, and gave it a favorable review that the developers linked to on their Website. I'd like to be as positive about their Fun Greetings Deluxe, but unfortunately it's not up to the same standard of power and user-friendliness. However, it does have its virtues.
The now Retina-ready app offers nearly 200 professionally designed card templates, appropriate for 13 different occasions. With step-by-step guidance, users can quickly add photos to the cover or inside of the card, crop or apply photo effects to photos; create personalized messages in any font in their Font Library; add shapes, borders, or graphics, and so forth.
However, unlike Funtastic Photos, which is very easy and intuitive to use, Fun Greetings Deluxe is not in several contexts. I found configuring text particularly clunky in its implementation.
Fun Greetings Deluxe users can also create their own templates, starting with a blank page and build their cards exactly as they want them. Here are some actual card samples created using Fun Greetings Deluxe.
After the 80 MB download, registration was smooth and straightforward, and one is presented with the first of several browsable card template selection screens. Once you find a card topic and design that appeals, click on its thumbnail to bring up the edit window.
A toolbar appears at the top of the window displays an array of card creation and editing tools. At the bottom is a four-position button bar that lets you bring up the card's front, inside facing pages, and the back individually without leaving the window.
You can drag photos from the Finder into template frames. and compose text using the text tools. If the template's text greeting isn't what you want to say, you can delete it and replace it with a custom greeting.
You can add graphics from a file or from the program's multi-topic graphic library. You can also drop in more photo images using the movable and resizable photo holder box, and insert various resizable shape fields.
When you card design is complete, you set its card configuration and printer setup details in a setup window, and print your card.
Fun Greetings Deluxe's print engine is capable of printing folded cards in several different sizes (including custom sizes), or cards that can be shared via email, Facebook, flickr, or Twitter. The back cover displays a professional-looking card label.
Fun Greetings Deluxe is able to print many different types of cards, including: square cards, flat cards, postcards, single & double fold cards, and exclusively to this app, Money Holders. Money Holders are cards that fit in standard letter envelopes, which when folded can easily contain money, gift cards, or checks. Print margins are not an issue for Fun Greetings Deluxe as it is smart enough to take the margins and convert them into an elegant border, unless users choose to print without any borders at all. A simple tutorial helps users with double-sided printing and offers advice on printing cards that are indistinguishable from costly alternatives available at the greeting card store.
The entire process works more or less as you would expect, and is functional, but I didn't find myself thinking: "wow, isn't that slick" the way I did when discovering features of the Funtastic Photos application. Instead, I found myself getting frustrated at times by the program's angularities. For example, for some unfathomable reason,r standard cut/copy/paste keyboard shortcuts are all supported, but Command X for "Delete" isn't, obliging a menu selection to invoke the command.
On the other hand, Fun Greetings Deluxe can get the job done and create very attractive and presentable greeting cards, and the price is reasonable, especially with the app. currently on sale for half its regular price (see details below). You can also download a demo of the app to check out and see if it's for you. If you decide to buy it, just enter the registration key in the demo, with no need of re-downloading.
Feature Highlights:
* Nearly 200 different 1-Click Styles are included, with more templates coming soon
* Many 1-Click Style categories: Holiday Season, Valentine's Day, Birthdays, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Congratulations, Invitation, Thinking of You, Get Well Soon, Halloween, Blank Message, Post Cards, eCards, Miscellaneous, User-Designed
* New, Hi-Res print engine
* Square cards, Flat Cards, Single Fold Cards, Double Fold Cards, Money Holders, and Custom Sized Cards
* 15 built-in photo effects; 35 built-in frames
* Clutter-free GUI with Retina-display compatibility
* Card templates (1-Click Styles) are easily selected from the card shelf (resembling a real world card shelf)
* Full-screen mode employs the entire screen for card design
* Large style previews showing the front page and the inside message
* Snapping Palettes (Inspectors) for Photos, Shapes, and Text that slide 95% offscreen when moved to the side of the screen
* Save custom card designs as 1-Click Styles
* Change the style, photo, or text of the card at any time
* Designed to print on heavy weight, premium paper or card stock (depending on the printer)
System Requirements:
* OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or later
* 1024 x 768 or higher screen resolution
* 115.4 MB Storage
* 2GB of RAM
* Printer
Regularly priced at $19.99, Fun Greetings Deluxe 1.0 is currently on sale at the introductory price of $9.99 through Ohanaware's Web site. A Mac App Store version will be available in the Graphics & Design category as soon as Apple approves Fun Greetings Deluxe. A Free Trial is available from the Ohanaware web site.
Fun Greetings Deluxe 1.0 can be found at Ohanaware:
http://www.ohanaware.com
Fun Greetings product page:
http://www.ohanaware.com/fungreetings/
Download Fun Greetings Deluxe (zip)
http://bit.ly/U5Dcgz
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