Each month Design Tools Monthly reviews some of the best plug-ins and XTensions on the market. Most of the mentioned products can be purchased through The PowerXChange.
Design Tools Monthly Survey Results
We sincerely thank our subscribers who returned our survey, which we mailed in September to everyone who receives our printed newsletter. In it, we asked our readers to indicate all of the software and hardware tools they use, so we can improve the focus of our stories.
We were delighted to receive replies from more than 25% of recipients. The results show an almost universal use of Adobe applications: 99% use Photoshop, 92% use Illustrator, and 92% use Acrobat. In the page layout world, Adobe InDesign is being used by a significant number of our subscribers (60%), while QuarkXPress is now used by 75% of our subscribers. And, clearly, Mac OS 9 is history — 93% now use Mac OS X. However, 75% also use Mac OS 9 — probably for QuarkXPress 4 and 5, which are still in use by about half of our subscribers, and for Acrobat 4 and 5, still in use by 42%.
We’re happy to see that Apple’s Safari is the leading Web browser, and that 74% have high-speed Internet access. Portability is popular: almost everyone has a desktop Mac, but at least 36% also have a PowerBook and apparently 8% use only a PowerBook.
The complete results are below. Please note that when there is more than one version of an application, percentages indicate subscribers who use any version of that application. Also, since many people use several versions of an application, it’s not unusual that the numbers for all the versions of an application total more than 100%.
Publishing Applications
- 93% use Mac OS X; 50% use Mac OS X only, 5% use Mac OS 9 only, and 75% use both.
- 75% use QuarkXPress, and of the QuarkXPress users, 81% use QX6, 38% use QX5, and 56% use QX4. Also, 33% use QX6 only, 5% use QX5 only, and 6% use QX4 only. And 14% use all three versions, while 18% use a combination of two versions.
- 60% use InDesign, and of those, 87% use CS, and 37% use version 2.
- 99% use Photoshop, and of those, 74% use CS, and 35% use version 7.
- 75% use Illustrator, and of those, 73% use CS, 52% use version 10, 15% use version 9.
- 25% use FreeHand, and of those, 75% use MX, 45% use version 10, and 32% use version 9.
- 92% use an authoring version of Acrobat.
General Statistics
- 34% use Dreamweaver.
- 23% use GoLive.
- 4% use Contribute.
- 27% use Flash.
- 8% use Fireworks.
- 75% use Microsoft Office.
- 13% use Keynote.
- 40% use iPhoto.
- 76% use Safari.
- 69% use Internet Explorer.
- 29% use Netscape.
- 17% have a .Mac account.
- 74% have a high-speed Internet connection.
- 41% use DSL.
- 33% use Cable.
- 11% use dial-up.
- 28% use an AirPort network.
- 92% use a desktop Mac.
- 44% use a PowerBook.
- 15% use an iBook.
- 24% use an iMac.
- 7% use an eMac.
- 31% use a Wacom tablet.
34% use a PostScript RIP.
25% have a color-managed workflow.
- Instant, Infinite Patterns in InDesign
Teacup Software’s PatternMaker 1.0 ($100) is a plug-in for InDesign that generates infinite patterns to fill any frame. Starting with a basic set of 15 PostScript patterns, you can use a simple palette to adjust many parameters for each. You can even add native InDesign effects such as drop shadows, feathering, skewing, scaling, transparency, etc. PatternMaker was designed by page-layout guru David Blatner.
Teacup Software
- Real Shadows in Photoshop
Andromeda Shadow Filter ($109) is a plug-in for Photoshop that creates realistic 3D shadows with edges that blur and soften with distance, just as real shadows do. You can create multiple shadows by using a virtual camera to pan around in 3D space to adjust multiple, movable lights and color filters. It can even create shadows that appear in three dimensions when viewed through 3D glasses!
Andromeda Software - Eye Candy 5: Nature
Alien Skin’s Eye Candy 5: Nature ($99) is a set of 10 plug-ins for Photoshop and Fireworks that add natural effects to images or text. Our favorite effects are: Drip, which melts things or adds paint drips to text; Icicles, which makes any object look like it’s been hit by an ice storm; Rust adds realistic corrosion to anything, or adds moss, mold or mildew; Smoke creates smoky effects ranging from volcanic eruptions to steaming coffee; Snow Drift adds a range of wintery effects, from a realistic light frost to deep snow. Other effects include Ripples, Fire, Corona, Squint, and Water Drops. See these impressive effects at www.alienskin.com.
The plug-ins include hundreds of presets for instant effects and have huge previews that show all layers. They support 16-bit RGB, CMYK and other image modes. “Nature” is the second of three $49 upgrades to Eye Candy 4000 – “Textures” was released in July, and “Impact” will ship in 2005.
Alien Skin
- Export Power for QuarkXPress
Badia’s Exportools 1.5 ($80) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 6 that lets you export your document pages in many ways, including: plain or rich text (RTF), Screen Picture, PostScript, EPS, and HTML. Each format has many options, notably: EPS and Screen Picture can be scaled 10% to 1000%, in B&W, grayscale or color; Text can be exported using any filter in QuarkXPress (XPress Tags, MS Word, etc.), and you can choose the order that text boxes are processed on a page. Each page in a project can be exported as a separate file. Exportools can also automatically send exported files to other applications for processing, such as sending PostScript to Distiller to make a PDF, or sending an EPS to Photoshop to rasterize at any size and resolution. Badia also has a version for QuarkXPress 5.
Badia Software - Keep Image Attributes when Replacing in QuarkXPress
Badia’s ReplaceInPlace 1.0.2 is a free XTension for QuarkXPress 6 that lets you retain previous picture attributes when importing an image into a picture box. Previous offset and scaling, for example, can be retained when replacing a low-res with a hi-res version of a picture. You can get an equivalent XTension for QuarkXPress 4 and 5, called PictAttributes XT, from MarkzWare.
Badia Software
Markzware - Automatic Calculations in QuarkXPress
eQuatrix’s MathTabs 2.0 ($99) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 6 that automatically performs basic mathematical calculations on rows and columns of numbers. It’s perfect for creating invoices, packing slips, price lists, and even annual reports. You assign a mathematical function to each text tab in line of text, and MathTabs places the result into the final tab position (column). It can format the numbers with any common monetary system, and can also total the values in a column and place the total in a new line below the column. A demo version is available, as well as a version for QuarkXPress 4.
eQuatrix - Better EPSes from QuarkXPress
JoLauterbach’s FontWizardXT 4.3 ($139) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 4, 5 or 6 that does several things: it lets you embed fonts into exported EPS files, export multiple pages to EPS, scale while exporting the EPS, and export a portion of a page to EPS, all with or without crop marks.
JoLauterbach Software
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This article was last modified on January 18, 2023
This article was first published on January 5, 2005
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