Review: MasterClips 1,000,001

By Paul Shields

Graphics are an invaluable tool for expressing ideas and emphasizing a point. Their use in Web pages, presentations, and word processing documents has become a common occurrence. Not using graphics in a presentation or Web page makes the document feel dull and offers little enticement for the reader to continue. The problem most people face though is that they are not graphic artists, nor can they afford to hire one. To meet this need, several companies sell clip-art collections for the consumer market. IMSI recently released what is currently the largest collection you can buy.

Consumer-oriented clip-art is generally royalty-free clip-art geared towards the mass-market needs. The images in most consumer collections will not be of the quality demanded by professional artists and publishing houses, but are more than adequate to meet the everyday needs of the home and office user.

MasterClips 1,000,001 builds on IMSI's classic collections of clip-art, Web art, and stock photos. This is a comprehensive collection of all previously released IMSI clip-art products and totals just over 400,000 images. The product also includes a 1-yr membership to Arttoday, a Web-based collection that offers an additional 600,000 images, thus the name 1,000,001.

The two products offer distinct characteristics and you can purchase a membership to Arttoday separate from the MasterClips collection.

The MasterClips collection comes on 49 CD-ROMs (a DVD version would be nice), and includes a large image catalog. The book is in sections whose color-coding matches the colors of the CD labels. IMSI also includes a customized version of Quicknailer called MasterClips browser. MasterClips browser allows the user to drag a folder of images onto a window to create thumbnail previews of every image in the folder. You can then browse through these images and extract images off the CD. You can also browse through the CD using the Finder if you know the exact name of the image you want.

Most the images on the CD are in EPS format, although the Web specific images are in GIF and JPEG formats. There is no keyword search and most of the file names are non-obvious abbreviated names. You will need to browse through the book looking for a particular image, then go to the CDs corresponding to that section of the book and find the file.

A keyword searchable index on the first CD would go a long way towards making this a more user-friendly product. The image catalog is nice, but with the ability to preview the images on screen, IMSI could save the printing expense and apply it to developing a better interface.

The quality of most of the images on the CD was excellent. There is a good mix of B&W and color images and I could usually find an image that fit my needs quickly. The Web art collection provides extensive sets of common buttons, bars, and backgrounds that many beginning Web designers may find useful. There is some repetition in themes, like letters in multitudes of styles and colors, but IMSI kept this to a minimum

The Arttoday part of the package offers a searchable index of over 600,000 pieces of clip-art, Web art and photos. Searching the collection was a breeze and generally returned several dozen matches for each query. Arttoday also categorizes the art by topic to make browsing the collection easy. While searching, the user has the option to include/exclude specific file formats and color or B&W images. The file formats are a mix of GIF, JPEG, WMF, and EPS, although a large percentage of the clip-art seems to be in WMF format. This may be a nuisance for some Mac users because of the need to translate to a more Mac-friendly format.

The problem with the Arttoday collection is that the quality is lacking compared to the CD collection. The percentage of B&W art was too high and the quality of the B&W art was lacking. The art was for the most part bland and unappealing.

Once you find the art you want, you can add it to your shopping cart or download it immediately. Packaging for UNIX, Mac, and Windows is available from the download page making it easy to work with the art once downloaded. Navigation of the Arttoday Web site is also easy.

IMSI has a great product on their hands, but the delivery of the product could improve dramatically. The Arttoday site did not include any of the art on the CD-ROMs, which was disappointing because it meant having to search in two places. The lack of keyword search on the CD was also annoying. If IMSI were to move the entire collection to an online product with keyword searching, this would be an outstanding bargain. A CD or DVD series that included a keyword search tool would complement the product well.

The collection is still a good one though and a good buy for most users. If you are looking for a way to spice up your Web site or presentation and have a tight budget, MasterClips is a good alternative.

Pros: Quality art on the CD collection, good search tool for Arttoday collection

Cons: No search engine on CD collection, quality of Arttoday collection not up to the same standards as the CD

Street Price: $89

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October 07, 2008