Programs by AutoFX

PhotoGraphic Edges (v. 5.0.6)

DreamSuite (v. 1.1.8, Effects Series I & II)
DreamSuite Gel

PhotoGraphic Edges (v. 5.0.6)

by AutoFX Software
511 Highland Park Circle
Birmingham, Alabama 35242
Phone: 205.980.0056
Fax: 205.980.1121
www.autofx.com

PhotoGraphic Edges $199 (upgrade from any version $129)

Requires Mac OS 9, full support for OS X (I was running this in X.2)
128 MB RAM minimum, 256 MB or more STRONGLY recommended

Reviews by Gary Coyne (replace the "-at-" with "@")

PhotoGraphic Edges is designed to give your (web, print, and screen) catalogues more variations and variety than simply the standard square (rectangle) shape that our cameras and scanners persist in providing.

Despite the good intentions and superb results, this program has problems from the very beginning. How early? Let me start.

Let me first warn you that this program comes on 3 CDs. It deposits about 1.5 Gigabytes of stuff on your computer. If you have Gigabytes to spare on your hard drive, this is no big concern, but if you are running short of space, and are not interested in purchasing a new hard drive right now, this program is not for you.

The first version of this program I received was carbonized to run in OS X and 9, but the installer was only for OS 9. I was soon sent a new disk that could install in OS X, but only the first of the three disks were OS X savvy as the 2nd and 3rd required rebooting in OS 9.

The basics of the program are fairly straightforward; you either start PGE separately and open an image from the open option, or from within Photoshop where you select PGE from the Filter menu (see image above).

Once the program has taken over your computer (like all AutoFX programs), you can then select what type of effect you want to use on your image.

Selecting Edges (for example) and selecting presets. One is presented with a variety of about 24 different Presets. Some look suspiciously similar, such as "Wispy Circle" and "Wispy Colors" (seen below) and when examining the settings of these two, they are in fact exactly the same (except for the name).

But you are not done. From there one can select a Catalog of inside (and/or) outside edges.

What you are then presented with is 17 Volumes of many, many variations. How many? Try 9,956 different edges. What's worse is that, as you can see in the screenshot below, in any given Volume, in any given set, there is no rhyme or reason for the nature of the edges. Here you see a propeller-like shape, a clean cut 4-sided object, a not-so clean cut 4 sided object and a feathered square rectangle.

For some unknown reason, these are not broken down by round edges, parallelogram edges, square edges, etc., and then further broken down into soft edges, hard edges, jagged edges, etc. I dug through the images, I got the feeling that AutoFX has seventeen graphic artists and each provided his/her own creations for edges. As to not hurt anyone's feelings, they all got placed into the program.

But, notice in the image (two images up) that identifies that the selected edge is AF042. Do you want to know how many AF042 edges there are? Four. The first four Volumes have no defined distinction. Starting with Volume 5, they are designated as V-AF042. The 6th volume is identified as VI-AF042, etc.

For what it's worth, here's how the chickens look when "artfully" using one of the Edges from the catalogue. It's nice, and a pleasant variation from a square image.

Beyond the frustrations when dealing with the Edges catalogue(s), there are other, more serious problems.

When you select frames, you are provided with three classes: Artistic Paint, Fall Leaves, and Natural Frame. Regardless whatever you select, you can at that point (in a fashion similar to the image three images up) select a new Catalog with two options: Artistic and Traditional frames.

So, I decided to try Traditional frames with a picture of my beer can chicken recipe on the BBQ. Here, the resolution of the original image was 1360 x 1024.

As shown above, the image in PGE on the left looked fine. But once I clicked OK, PGE closed and brought me back into Photoshop (and the image completed its processing) where only the upper left quadrant of the image survived. The rest of the image was lost. What you see on the right hand side above is all I got in Photoshop.

When I tried this a 2nd time with the same image but smaller resolution (500 x 469), this problem did not show up. If there is a resolution limit, I couldn't find it listed in the PDF manual.

I do not question the value or need of this product. Providing some variety and variations of how an image is presented is a great idea, and this product can do that. But, accessing the various options and preset images is so unwieldy that it verges on useless. I cannot imagine anyone going through each and every edge variation to find "just the right one to use." They do provide a PDF of every variation, but as anyone who has used graphic-heavy PDFs on a computer, even a fast computer (I've got a 733 G4), scrolling through each one is still not worth the time. A printed text accompanying this software (similar to what one gets with clip-art packages) would have been wise. What I find astounding is that this is the 5th version of this software. Am I the only one who finds the frustratingly awkward interface to be more a hindrance than an asset?

Programs by AutoFX

DreamSuite (v. 1.1.8, Effects Series I & II)
DreamSuite Gel

AutoEye (v. 2.0.5)

PhotoGraphic Edges (v. 5.0.6)