*** From the Archives ***
This article is from December 4, 2002, and is no longer current.
The Creativepro.com Holiday Gift Guide
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Sandee Cohen, Sharon Steuer, Eric J. Adams, Pamela Pfiffner, Sonja Schenk, Susan Glinert Stevens, David Morgenstern contributed to this article.
Even though the old adage is that it’s better to give than to receive, we all know that when it comes to holiday presents we hope to get as good as we give. And what better way to find out what to give the creative professional on your list than to ask creative professionals themselves what they’re secretly coveting. By the way, you help to support creativepro.com when you buy items through our affiliation with Amazon. — Compiled by Pamela Pfiffner, creativepro.com editor in chief
Steady Software
Unwrapping software may seem like the equivalent of opening that long narrow box containing a tie from your Aunt Ethel — dull, predictable, and decidedly anti-climactic. But at the same time, what creative professional doesn’t need applications?
David Morgenstern: As longtime readers are aware, I’ve been spending much of my Mac computing hours in OS X and recently in the Version 10.2 update, dubbed Jaguar (see figure 1). It’s great fun, but as we all know, that transition means upgrading third-party software, and that can tax the budget.
Updating the big titles is an expensive proposition and after a short while, even the smaller products add up quickly. Hence, I’m still using the older Classic versions of Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop, while wishing I were using the latest versions. So if you know someone who’s been making the switch to Mac OS X, don’t overlook giving software basics, including big-ticket products and low-priced utilities. All are essential to the OS X experience. And don’t forget that on New Year’s Day 2003, Mac users live in an all OS X world, as all new mac henceforth ship with that OS only.
Figure 1: Mac OS X 10.2 aka Jaguar — and the software that runs on it — is perfect for the Mac user on your list.
Pamela Pfiffner: There are now four good page-layout programs to choose from: Adobe InDesign, Adobe PageMaker, QuarkXPress, and Corel Ventura. All have had upgrades recently — make sure your friends and relations have the latest. Best idea: Expose him or her to one of the other products. Give a PageMaker or QuarkXPress user InDesign 2. Give version 5 of QuarkXPress to an InDesign user. Haven’t looked at Ventura recently? Give version 10 a whirl.
David Morgenstern: Speaking of updates, I have been experimenting with Binuscan’s PhotoRetouch Pro 1.0.6, a $749 photo-editing and color calibration package offered in Mac OS 9 and OS X-native versions. The software provides a number of very interesting tools, one of which lets users examine underlying scanner and CCD artifacts in images. I will discuss these technology and the hardware issues in a forthcoming column. The company demonstrated Version Pro 2.0 at Photokina earlier in the fall and I’m looking forward to seeing it in action. A demo of PhotoRetouch Pro 1.0.6 is available here.
Sandee Cohen: I drooled over Ben Long’s review of Auto FX DreamSuite. Those are the types of effects I love to apply to Photoshop files. Please, Mommy, can I have one of those? What I also want is a copy of Woodwing Software’s Smart Styles 2 for InDesign 2 Smart Styles combines object, table and smart text styles into super powerful Smart Styles. Just one click is all I need to apply intricate formatting to InDesign tables. (Both products are available as downloads from their respective sites.)
Pamela Pfiffner: I’ve praised it before and I’ll praise it again: Photoshop Elements 2.0 is a great buy and not just for entry-level users. If you have a digital camera, this software is a must (see figure 2).
Figure 2: Many new digital cameras ship with Photoshop Elements 2.0, but owners of last year’s model can use it, too.
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