Features

• 800,000 premium royalty-free graphics on 34 CD-ROMs
• Complete professional art library; no downloading required
• Scale most images to any size; popular file formats
• 32-bit image browser software with full-color previews
• Includes DrawPlus 5, a powerful graphics editor

Reviews (5)

Comprehensive Collection--with some minor limitations.
Amazon has the best price going for this clip art series. Period.

This collection of images, fonts, and whatnot is truly extensive. The enclosed drawing program, DrawPlus 5, I'd like to call "Illustrator Lite"; it has some functionality (you can export your work as GIFs, TIFFs, JPEGs, and such), but its usefulness will only get you so far until you'd have to upgrade to the real deal.

As far as the clipart and photos go, this is no ordinary collection. If you're a desktop publisher or graphic arts moonlighter (aspiring to full time), this is a gigantic amount of material to use for your clients. The pictures are fantastic, the clipart is comprehensive--you'd probably find just about anything you can think of, or at least have the basic building blocks to customize what you need--and the fonts are a nice extra. However, most of the fonts in this collection you'd probably already have, especially if you have MS Publisher or any Adobe product (who has the best font set in the market).

I have issues with the catalog search engine. It's useful up to a point, but I don't end up using it much. If you have Windows XP, you'll be using the Windows Explorer photo feature more than the search engine, anyway. The image book (thank gods!) that comes with this set is the size of your average Merriam-Webster dictionary, and it's ESSENTIAL for this collection. The CDs are arranged in the exact order that the images appear in in the book, so using the book, then using Windows Explorer will be a much better searching feature than the included search engine program.

For Macintosh users, there are instructions in the book as to how to use the discs. I can't attest to it, but I assume you can use the CDs in Macs as well as you can use them in a regular PC.

The big blue book (the book is big and it's blue) doesn't have an extensive listing of the photos on the CDs. What you see in the book is only a representation of the category; you'll have to search the entire disk to find specific images that you want to use. Thus, you're browsing blind as far as the book is concerned.

All in all, a wonderful comprehensive library of images.

P.S. Note to Pagans: the images in this collection are rather stereotypical. (I.E. green-faced witches, mostly cartoonish wizards, etc.) No specifically named clipart pics point to "our" holidays, even though they have an "other holiday" category in the set. However, the mythology clipart is extensive, colorful and tasteful. From those sets and other parts of the collection, you should be able to either find, adapt, or customize the art you need for specific Pagan-centered projects. Bright Blessings and happy desktop publishing!

Getting Better
I must say, the clip art in this edition has gotten so much better than my previous buy. However, I am very disappointed with the quality of all of the photographs. They are blurry, have compression noise and are not very well composed. And do I really need 10 copies of each photo....um NO! My little point and shoot digital takes better pictures than these...think I'll take my own.

The Best Collection Ever!
I just received my box last week and it is great. All of the images are inside the box and the printed catalog makes finding the exact image I want to use very easy and no downloading is required. I thought it would be good, but this is GREAT! If you want clip art, this is the one to have.

Overwhelmed!
I ordered this package since I just needed a few images for a project I was doing and it looked nice. When it came in the mail I could not believe how heavy it was and there was so much inside. It comes with a huge printed image manual which makes finding any image easy. It is over 1800 pages! This was so much more than I expected. I just ordered a second copy for my friend. 5 stars!!!

Where's the Mac version?
This is a great product. I know it's available in a Mac version and I wish Amazon would offer that. I guess I'll have to buy it somewhere else. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

Far more than a digital image organizer and quickie touchup tool, Photo Explosion Deluxe is a massive four-CD suite designed for the photographic artist and craftsperson. With this broad-ranging package, you can capture still images from your digital camera, DV camcorder, or scanner, alter them to the very limits of your imagination, and display or print them in any way you see fit.

Photo Explosion Deluxe offers a stunning array of editing tools. We started with simple contrast and focus adjustments and then curled the edge of our photo as if it was lifting slightly from its backing mat. We added a few translucent soap bubbles in the top left corner, threw a softened spotlight on the subject's face, and placed some clouds and streaky raindrops throughout. We then selected an antique frame, titled it with an ornate script, and even added our signature at the bottom right. Although every parameter of the editing process is fully adjustable, the program can also perform a variety of automatic modifications.

After you've explored the central application, you'll want to investigate the extra three CDs for even more ideas and concepts. Here you'll find scores of artistic and fancy fonts, hundreds of miscellaneous stationery and greeting card templates, and oodles of professional-grade photos covering a wide range of subjects, from scenery and sunsets to scantily clad models. The fourth CD houses bonus software available only in Photo Explosion's deluxe version, including a utility for panorama stitching and two tools for configuring and exporting your photos to handheld computers. The final application, DVD PhotoPlay, allows you to build a slide show from selected images, burn it to a CD-RW, and play it on any CD or DVD player that supports Video CD 2.0.

Photo Explosion Deluxe is recommended to those who want to express themselves artistically through their digital photos. A fast Pentium 3 processor or above is suggested for advanced editing. --Gordon Goble ... Read more

Features

• Complete digital photo studio with extensive editing tools
• 600+ professional special effects; 2,500+ photo projects
• 1-click SmartEnhance technology removes red eye
• Easily share images via email or as albums posted on the Web
• Turn photos into greeting cards, calendars, and more

Reviews (6)

Love this software ...
Bought Photo Explosion Deluxe this week, and I can't tell you how pleased I am. I own them all - PhotoSuite, Photoshop Album, PictureIt and several others - and Photo Explosion takes the cake by a mile.

It's extremely easy to use, for starters. The developers have really thought things out because it's much easier to navigate than the other programs I own - and you don't get this annoying bar along the left side that asks you a battery of unending questions like PhotoSuite and PictureIt. (Those products remind me of a DOS program where you're constantly prompted press 1 for this, 2 for that.)

And I was really surprised by the VCD burning functionality. I bought Photo Explosion chiefly to clean up photos and print them - which it does really well and with tons of beautiful options for projects and designs. But the video slide show feature is really cool. You can add music, as well, and the quality of CD it produces is much better than I've seen with other standalone programs. Other reviewers have complained that there aren't enough transitions, but I did some research on that point, and it turns out that those features require a different kind of file called MPEG 2, which explains why many of the VCDs I've made with some of the fancier programs (not Photo Explosion) have not worked on some DVD players.

Anyhow, Photo Explosion Deluxe is a great buy...and much better than the other options out there. Enjoy ...

Not so powerful for making VCD
Lacks transitions between slides of digital pictures. Makes the slideshow somewhat flat. One good thing - can put music and also is quite fast in creating a VCD

Nice program lots of features
Photo Explosion Deluxe exceeded my expectations. It is a nice complimentary program for PSP and other similar programs. It has loads of features including masks, frames, albums and far too many others to mention here.

The only drawback I found is the slideshow feature which causes an windows error when launched. People I sent this to also experienced this same error.

But other than this flaw I absolutely think that Explosion for the money is an excellent buy. It takes a little playing with but once you figure it out you can achieve just about anything you want with your graphics.

If Nova fixes the slideshow problem I would most definitely give this program a five star rating.

Poor print Quality
Photo Explosion Deluxe is easy enough to use but won't print to printer correctly.Have a canon s900 that prints beautiful photo prints but after editing with photo explosion My print quality is very poor.

Spend you money on another title
I have yet to understand why this product received such a good review from the editor. It's not easy to use. There is no natural flow and progression when you attempt to make projects. Not to mention the layout of the design screen is elementary and not very pleasing to look at. If you use this product make sure that your pictures are in folders that aren't more than one folder deep on your hard drive or you won't be inputting them easily into any projects. This product has caused me nothing but irritiation it feels like it is more suited for Windows 98 than Windows XP, I refuse to believe this product was designed and produced since computers came in the 75Mhz variety. Save your money and use it on something else ... Read more

Features

• Sophisticated, easy-to-use program for creating personalized projects
• Design greeting cards, newsletters, full stationery sets, or decorations
• Access images, photos, headlines, logos, and more from one location
• Full suite of photo editing tools; enhanced printing resolution
• 100 free Paramount greeting cards with online registration

Reviews (1)

LOTS of Projects
This program has lots of projects for you to choose from. It is easy to use, also. The biggest downfall is that the photo fixing and enhancing are not the greatest. You are limited to a few minor fixes on the photo itself, and enhancing is the same. You can enhance a lot better with Creating Keepsakes. Neither program has much to actually fix a photo. If you are looking for photo enhancing and fixing, move on. If you want great projects for everything from photos to making coloring book pages for kids, this is for you. ... Read more

Product Description

CAD Pro is the most cost-effective and easy to use CAD solution for Windows! Its a powerful drafting and design software designed with over 7,200 easy to use features that enables you to create virtually any type of drawing for print or the web. CADPro is developed for the beginner and advanced user so that anyone can quickly pick up on the latest features. Include are over 5,000 professionally drawn symbols and clip art, also included are quick reference cards, users manual and symbols/clipart manual in a PDF format. The CADPro Platinum Bundle is the perfect home improvement and drafting software, included; are ready to print professional plans (valued at over $10,000). Each project plan is included as a CADPro drawing, enabling you to modify any aspect to meet your specific application. Simply print these Do-It-Yourself Plans with the build of materials and have your local home improvement store give you a detailed cost, its that simple! CAD Pros compact, straightforward toolbox design gives you quick and easy access to all tools necessary to design anything the easy way. A full range of advanced drafting tools such as Join, Chamfer, Fillet, Extend, Trim, etc. save you time and effort while meeting the exacting standards of your design. Precise alignment is a snap, with just a simple mouse-click you can align and connect objects quickly and easily. The snap tools can constrain angles, draw tangent lines, align edges, and connect objects at any point. ... Read more

Features

• Superior Ease of Use
• Intelligent Tools w/ Floating & Dockable Toolboxes
• Over 5000 Professional Symbols & Clip Art
• Import DXF R12, 13, 14, 2000, BMP, JPG & TIFF
• Windows XP/2000/ME/98SE/NT

Reviews (1)

Simply Amazing
My husband and I talked about putting up a barn next to our house for years, but the commitment of hiring a professional architect seemed intimidating - as well as expensive.

CADPro is not just a listing of standard house plans that maybe you will like (or maybe not), it's a real blueprint design program. Yes, it does have some ready made plans, including a pretty cool tree house and outdoor kitchen - but this was not what I wanted.I started by installing the program - with so many buttons and features (over 8,000) I was not sure where to begin.Luckily, CADPro includes a separate training CD (with sound and video) in the box.I watched the individual video lessons while I had the CADPro program open on my computer so I could go back and forth to practice.This is not a program you will fully master overnight.

I still have not used all the features, but I was able to quickly access the tools I needed to design my barn in detail.One of my favorite features is the pop-up photo.By dragging and dropping the camera icon from the toolbar onto the floor plan the program automatically opens My Pictures.Since I wanted a post and beam look on the inside I took a digital photo (taken while eating at my favorite restaurant) and saved it in My Pictures.I also scanned in some photos from a post & beam brochure and popped these in too - there is no limit to the number of photos you can include.The photos show up on the floor plan as little camera icons - by clicking once on the tiny camera the photos open.

Although my intent was to just design my barn using CADPro, I found I could redesign my great room (or other rooms) by using the existing dimensions of my house and creating images of the furniture I already have (with their size to scale).I can now rearrange my furniture to see if it will fit - before I move my sofa 10 times.

I am still waiting to see if the town will approve the building permit for my barn, but I feel better knowing I only invested 70 dollars, and I know exactly how it will look, and what the materials and estimated labor will cost, before they pour the foundation.I would highly recommended this program for anyone who wants to design their own renovation (or house) exactly the way they want, with blueprint results that a contractor can work from.
... Read more

Reviews (6)

Product doesn't live up to the hype
I bought this product based on what I thought were some good looking images on the box, but once I opened it... Yuck! If you want some really great clip art, best go to a site like Artzooks.com, where you can at least preview the images, buy and download only the images you need.

Watch out Mac G5 owners ....
I just got a Mac G5 with 2 GB of RAM and was looking forward to using this product. I would have to agree that from the book most of the clipart contained in this set is cartoonish, but my worst complaint is that I just couldn't install it. On install all you'll get is a window stating you don't have enough RAM and fail to continue.

Nova Development software support wasn't any help either. They were VERY familiar with the problem and the tech made it clear that a fix would NOT be coming out anytime in the near future. He immediately gave me the phone # to call and get a refund ... and I'll use it.

Useful, but still lacking
I bought this book mainly hoping I could find good illustrations of a diverse selection of people. I find that most of those illustrations are too cartoonish for editorial use, and don't show much variety. The high resolution photos were of no use either as they are actually only "medium" resolution. They would be great for web usage but not for print. Also, I wasn't able to use the electronic image catalog and was unable to search the photographs effectively since the file names are not descriptive.
If you're looking for illustrations of things rather than people, then this is a good source. The vector images are well organized and the print catalog is easy to use. Overall, I'd say this is a good product, but I don't think it offers much more than the 525,000 or 600,000 image versions.

Ton of clip-art.... good quality (great for the price)
You really can't beat the price on this set of clip-art. Many of the graphics are low quality vector illustrations which I wouldn't use... but the portion that is usable is well worth the price. The photos included are mostly useless for a serious graphic designer like myself. Most are 72dpi and many are poorly taken photographs. All of the business and people photos are outdated by about 10 - 15 years going by the clothing and equipment. The photos are not searchable by key word... you have to browse (which is very time consuming). Don't get me wrong - if you're looking for one set of clip-art that has just about everything, this is it.

All You Need
I used this collection when I worked at a major college newspaper. I never got tired of browsing the discs and I always found perfect images for ads. It has everything. The antique images are great, as are the photographs. I can't stress how many images this thing has! ... Read more

Features

• An easy way to do more with digital photos
• Organize collection and find photos fast
• Fix and enhance photos easily
• Drag and drop to create impressive keepsakes
• Back-up and protect photos on CD

Amazon.com Product Description

Share your faith by personalizing and sending store-quality greeting cards you've made with Art Explosion Christian Greeting Card Factory. It's a complete collection of spiritual cards, with more than 2,000 exclusive Christian greeting cards and customizable projects. It also includes more than 10,000 spiritual graphics, 700 inspirational sentiments, and 300 fonts to use in your designs. Combine spiritual greetings you've selected or verses from the Scripture with any one of a variety of card templates or create your own from scratch. Choose from greeting cards, invitations, announcements, and other projects like church fliers, certificates, newsletters, and pocket devotionals. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Awesome graphics!
I was so happy with Art Explosion Greeting Card Factory Deluxe that I jumped to buy this one and was quite thrilled with all the new cards available. (Just ordered the new #2 too!) Like the other, this can be fully installed so you don't need to hunt the CD every time you want to make a card. Easy to change card sizes too. More variety of ready-mades than most of the competition (I own them too). I highly recommend Nova's products and their online support has been right there and very helpful.

Explosion is a good thing!
This product has all the same goodies as the others of this type, great clipart and fairly easy to use work areas. The one outstanding feature with this software is it can be completely loaded onto the computer. You don't even have to use the CD to run it! That alone made it worth the buy. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

Best software of its kind
Print Explosion Deluxe is, in my opinion, orders of magnitude better than the original Print Explosion and beats Print Shop (which, by comparison, is cumbersome, not "Mac-like" and not os x compatible) hands down. The artwork in Print Explosion Deluxe (templates, etc.) is really nice, too, and it's easy for me to customize. I've used Print Shop and Print Master on the PC, and Print Explosion Deluxe is on par with those products, which I think are great on the Windows side.

Insanely Great Mac Print Software!
I've been a user of Nova Development products for years, having bought their first Art Explosion product when they first brought it out. They've always been committed to great Mac software, and Print Explosion Deluxe won't disappoint.

My wife and I are both teachers, and we use Print Explosion Deluxe (she under OS 9 and me under OS X) for school projects, as well as for our church. It's a simply outstanding program for making banners, flyers, greeting cards, and other printed projects. The templates/designs are great, and the tools are excellent. And, most important to me being a Mac user since 1984, it feels like a Macintosh product, unlike Print Shop and some of the other "Windows ports" I've tried that are just hokey on the Mac.

Contrary to another review I read on Amazon, I think the graphics are incredibly well organized and of great quality. It's easy to find images for just about any purpose, and the software is just incredibly easy to use.

It even supports EPS graphics. So no matter where the clip art comes from, you can print it out, even on an inkjet printer, and the quality is perfect at any size. Even Microsoft Word doesn't do that for me. And creating your own projects from scratch is easy.

Along with Quicken, Word and Entourage, Print Explosion Deluxe is one of my core Macintosh applications. I use it daily and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Nice app, but has weird quirks that need fixing.
Pretty much everything they claim about this app is true. If you're looking for a simple app for print projects, this is hard to beat. That said, here are the gotchas to look out for:

The app doesn't support ANY antialiasing making on-screen editing difficult. If your project is destined for print this isn't a big deal, but if your destination is a screen image it's a problem.

The program's JPEG compression is HORRIBLE; its BEST setting is worse than Photoshop's WORST setting! With its lack of antialiased text, this renders the program's e-postcard feature practically useless.

The installer is questionable. The program ships on three CDs, with the installer on one and extra graphics and fonts on the others. But the installer doesn't add the contents of the other two CDs to your installation. Those have to be installed MANUALLY. Considering that the quality of the graphics on the other two CDs is much higher AND the fact that this information isn't clearly explained anywhere, it becomes an issue for the less knowledgable/experience (for whom this app is primarily aimed towards).

Knowing this, I would buy this app again -- but I wouldn't use it for anything destined for on-screen use. Since the app is called *PRINT* Explosion this makes sense. :-)

UPDATE 5/2/04: Since writing this review, I have learned via an email conversation with Nova Development that they have no interest in addressing the shortcomings listed above. I have also purchased The Print Shop for Mac OS X which is a significantly nicer/higher quality app and is definitely an OS X-savvy app (not a Windows port as Print Explosion is), but it doesn't have the billions of bits of art and fonts that come with Print Explosion. But if given the choice between Print Explosion and Print Shop, choose Print Shop.

Great Mac Software
Print Explosion works great with OS X Panther. It has a wealth of templates, images and fonts. The only problem is you can't start with a blank project, but it is easy enough to pick a generic one and delete the stuff you don't want. Well worth the money.

Great basics for design for less money
First, I do promo for a large fundraising project. I purchased the basic version and found it to be extremely workable however when I then upgraded and attempted to email my work to my printers I found that my fonts and designs were corrupted and wouldn't come through well. As the main piece I created using this program I print out and mail about 6000 copies a month this is too bad.
This is mainly names and the program does the graphics well just not the word processing aspect.
So the upshot is for little money you can create some great basic pieces. Make a master and you are fine if you can do the printing on the glass.
I also found a limitation of not being able to work with unusual sizes. That is overcome by figuring your own measurments
All in all a very useful program and I am reommending it for all 179 organizations following in my fundraising footsteps.
Our large organization sent out a cd version based on this for my main fundraising piece and I got a call from someone saying he couldn't afford the $900.00 software -how did I do this?
Pretty good recommendation. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Regarding: American Greetings CreataCard Platinum 8
I currently have American Greetings CreataCard Gold 3, and I love it. It has been so easy to use, and I like the fact that I can create an envelope, which comes up with my return address already on it, and address it with a single click of the mouse. Then I can change the font and add an image. With the Platinum 8, I have not been able to do that at all. I tried to do their "Mail Merge", even had the instructions in front of me, but it would not work. The setup is not nearly as handy to use, and it is always trying to send me to the Internet for images. I am very disappointed with this product.

Poor Upgrade
I have Create a Card Platinum 5 and really like it. I haven't upgraded for some time because I thought it was good as is. But I decided to buy the Platinum 8 to check it out. What a rip off. Hardly any upgrades at all in the format. A few new graphics, but what was available to me before is now only available on line. I felt taken buying this and think this company should be ashamed of themselves.

CreataCard Platinum 8
I've been using CreataCard for eight years. This is my third updated version. The previous version was Gold 2. I have to agree with the other two who wrote their reviews, in that I was disappointed. What I really missed was the rotating screen saver. Another feature that was changed was the art format, which you could open like a book. I'm fortunate in that I still have the Gold 2. If this is your first version of CreataCard, it's worth the buy. If you have, as I do, Gold 2, save your money. In all fairness, since I didn't pay full price, I have chosen to keep the Platinum 8 version, but I will not buy another update.

Hallmark Card deluxe 200-2004
I think that the Hallmark Card deluxe 2000-2004 is great.
I think it helps kids draw and helps to make thier family happy.
If possible try to send me as many of these a possible without going
over $20.00. Thank you so much dianna

Creatacard Platinum 8
So far this is a real dud, much less then I had expected. I have used creatacard 3 plus in the past and this can't come close to being as nice as that one. Platinum 8 does not have the calender with all of the holiday capabilities. I am having trouble printing out my calender in the landscape mode. "Forget me not" will not appear when I turn on my computer which I miss a lot. ... Read more

Features

• Nearly a million digital images for your personal use, on 8 DVDs
• Hundreds of thousands of fully scalable vector clip art images & illustrations
• nearly 400,000 images and graphics designed for the Web, andnow available to you
• 1,500 animations you can add freely to any Web page, presentation or other project
• Take advantage of Photo-Objects - the pre-masked set of photographic objects you can add with drag-and-drop simplicity

Reviews (2)

Good solid collection on DVD
This may be the only collection a smaller designer or hobbyist may ever need, as it's so dang HUGE. The interface is pretty good for searching through this monster, and automates the easy export to a wide variety of formats for various uses.

It's important to note that despite the "media" statement at the top of this page, this is on DVD, not CD-ROM; which is a good thing, as the 30GB of pictures would take up nearly 50 CDs, weight a ton, and need a much bigger box!

800K is enough.
Need clip art? Then get this. It has nearly everything it seems. I searched for "cabinet" and there were an amazing amount of cabinets. It is just a wonderful set of art for a small price. People who do web design will love this product. The search engine is pretty good. I needed to download the patch though, since the search engine kept crashing. ... Read more

Features

• InDesign CS and Adobe PageMaker Plug-in Pack combined
• PageMaker-compatible keyboard shortcuts; PageMaker toolbar
• Template browser and professional template sets; graphics preview
• Story Editor, control palette; flexible table creation; multiple undos
• Standard Adobe user interface; extensive training materials

Features

• PC Print shop program collection with a Christian theme
• Thousands of Christian clip art images
• Create bulletins, calendars, Sunday school materials and more
• Calendar creator includes scheduling options
• Easy to install and use

Reviews (2)

THE BEST CHRISTIAN CLICK-ART IN THE WORLD!!
BRODERBUND (THE LEARNING CO) MADE A HUGE MISTAKE WHEN THEY DIS-CONTINUED THIS PRODUCT. CLICK-ART THAT IS TRUE TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IS DIFFICULT TO FIND. BRODERBUND (THE LEARNING CO) SHOULD TAKE THE TIME (AND MONEY) TO MARKET THIS IMPORTANT SOFTWARE TO CHURCHES ALL OVER THE UNITED STATES.

I DON;T THINK THEY RECOGNIZE A GOOD THING WHEN THEY HAVE IT IN THE PALM OF THEIR HANDS.

Best religious clip art anywhere
This is a great clip art program, and you get the extra calendar software and printing software too. I use the clip art to illustrate bible stories. They have great pictures of all the major stories in the bible which can be printed out onto card stock and used for felt board stories. The pictures are bright and colorful and the kids adore them. There are also plenty of traditional pictures which are great for adults and older teens. Most of the stories have black and white pictues too, which can be copied for the kids to color before or after the lesson. I love having the coloring pages match the art work used for the felt board, it seems very professional, but is as easy as hitting the print button. ... Read more

Features

• Create scrapbooks to share your memories and re-discover the past
• Over 2,500 scrapbook templates and customizable projects
• Over 20,000 premium quality graphics
• Enjoy leading-brand clip art from Art Explosion
• Web slide shows and albums, and play CD scrapbooks on any DVD player

Reviews (17)

Good product, with a few bugs.(...)
I recently purchased the Scrapbook Factory Deluxe ver. 2.0 software. So far, I believe that this is one of the best software products on the market today. It is very user-friendly, and without much of a learning curve. You can produce impressive scrapbooking pages, in a matter of minutes. However, the problem comes in when you create scrapbooking pages with more than 12 pictures and text on a page. If you do not print that page as soon as you finish creating it, trying to save it and print it later, is impossible. What happens usually, is that the page with all of your hard work will usually crash, and you end up starting all over. This can be quite disappointing. Secondly, even with a new printer, when you put a full page border on your page, there have been many occasions, where the border would not print correctly on the bottom of the page, and some of it would get chopped off. Lastly, as a friendly suggestion, more templates are needed for the areas of Graduation, Kwanza, Anniversaries, Halloween and Easter. Other than the few bugs mentioned above, "Good Job, Nova Development"! I'm looking forward to your next new and improved version.

Useful Tool for Creating Scrapbook Pages
Pros
Makes laying out a scrapbook page easy, with many options available.

Cons
Templates are limited and rather "cutesy".

The Bottom Line
This program is easy to use, and helped me create a custom scrapbook page with little effort. One caveat: Once you select a size template, be certain to check the result with "print preview" before you expend any effort. I had trouble getting the first page I created to print in 12 x 12 size on a 12 x 12 sheet of paper. However, I called tech support. The first rep didn't help much, but then I got a follow-up call from Derek, who had gone to the trouble of downloading my Canon S9000 printer's driver! Together, we got the print function going and produced a perfect page. It's really refreshing to find a software outfit that really cares about the results its customers are getting! It is too bad that the templates supplied with this program are so cutesy and schmaltzy, and that more background "paper" isn't supplied. But if you start with a blank template, hey, it's a clean slate and you can let your imagination run wild. It'll let you drop in your pictures and graphics wherever, and help with the lettering for titles and journaling.

Recommended
Yes

...
Operating System: Windows

Excellent Program
I've used many graphics, CAD drafting and photo editing programs. So I was a little apprehensive that this scrapbook, which I bought to make a presentation of wedding pictures for faraway relatives, wouldn't be up to expectations. I was especially doubtful on account of the comment an Amazon review that the clip art is "cartoonish."
Actually, I'm delighted. Some of the art is cartoonish, but by no means all of it is, and all of it can be exported and modified. I finished the wedding scrapbook and went on to an illustrated journal. The program is so flexible and will do so many fun things--I think it's great.
A few caveats: the photo editor doesn't really replace a good photo editing program.(You'd hardly expect it to, for the price.) The text editing is a bit rudimentary too--I can't see any way to paste text from external documents into it. The icons are puzzlingly nonuniform with those of other programs, and some of the maneuvers are far from obvious.
But if you have any interest in working with a text/illustration program, you could well be just as delighted with this offering as I was.
Last caveat: It's kind of addictive!

Very Helpful
Nova Development Tech Support was there when I needed them. I didn't go through 10 different automated phone selections and then have to wait hours for a response. TS was there and available immediately. Tech Support was knowledgeable, patient, and indispensable in finding and curing problems.
There are other products which compete with Nova Development software, but I don't know of any company that does a better job of technical support. And, as it is in many fairly complex installations, technical support during the installation can save the day, as it did in this case.
When you buy from Nova Development, you are not just buying software. You are buying the superb technical support that can be critical to the successful installation of the software.

Tech support was really helpful
Thanks,
You offered precise instructions that worked right the first time.
You guys give great support! ... Read more

Features

• 300,000+ premium royalty-free graphics on 14 CD-ROMs
• On-screen image browser with full-color previews
• Convenient WMF, TIF, JPG, and GIF file formats
• 100,000+ scalable vector graphics; 50,000+ color photos and backgrounds
• All graphics in the box; no downloading required

Reviews (1)

Photos are old
The clip art is great but the Photos are from the 70's and 80' so if you need really old photos its great. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

It comes with BOOK OF IMAGES!!
I've been using clip art to illustrate a dental newsletter for years. I've used Corel, Microsoft clipart, ClipTures by Dream Maker, Art Explosion 125,000 and even online based clip art websites. What is important is that the software has quality images and comes with a BOOK OF SAMPLE IMAGES with an index. Art Explosion 600,000 has both. Most other packages (including Art Explosion 200,000) DON'T include a book of images.

Aronbergvlad is right; there is no real search engine. Don't bother installing the "Art Explosion Installer", or their catalogue browser. The browser only searches the images on the CD that is in the drive. Not the other 28 CDs. It's useless.

However the book of images is just fine for finding images. Just look up your subject the index, find a nice image in the book, pop in the corresponding CD, set Windows Explorer to Thumbnails view and scroll until you see one you like.

Using clip art is not for beginners. It takes practice, but if you're ready, Art Explosion 600,000 is the BEST there is.

Don't be fooled!
I bought ClickArt 750,000 because it had more images for less money - only to find that there were fewer than 200,000 images in the box and I'd have to download the rest! Very aggravating. Art Explosion 600,000, in contrast, is an honest clip art product. All 600,000 images are in the box. It's a much better option. And the graphics are of very high quality.

Good product
I agree with most of the other reviewers; this package is inexpensive for all you get, and the quality of the images is good. I'm using it with Windows XP Professional and have had NO problems with the interface between the operating system and the software. It installed quicky and easily.

I did have a problem with one of the disks originally, but Nova came through with great customer service. Now I'm a customer for life.

Great Big Box of Clip Art
This is great! All of the art is in the box with a nice big book showing all of the images. I read a review that said this was not XP compatible. I have two machines, one with XP Pro and one with XP Home and it works on both with no problem.

If you want alot of great clip art this is the one!

Sounded too Good to be True
Read the reviews of this product by both consumers and manufacturer. Ordered the product based on the reviews only to find out that this item is not compatible with Windows XP. Would have been nice to list system requirements so people can know whether or not to order. If defeats the purpose to find out only after you've ordered and received the product that it's not compatible with your system, and you have to return it. ... Read more

Features

• The finest collection of top-quality, royalty-free images
• Top-quality images on both CD and online
• Free, instant access to Clipart.com's clipart collection
• 2.5 million+ illustrations, photos, fonts, sounds, videos, and animations
• Variety of categories offers a great selection

Reviews (2)

Misleading software
This software sounded like the answer to a prayer. 2.5 million cliparts should cover everything. Forget it. The box came with 3 cd's, no catalog or instructions. The installation disc corrupted the My Computer file on my computer. The other 2 discs had a list of wav files and some buttons on them. I called Nova for help and the tech tried to install the program with me but to no avail. The comment was that it is a new program. He finally got me into the web site with clipart that you get free with this program. What they don't tell you is that most of the clipart is online on this site and after a year you will have to pay $100 to continue your subscription. Needless to say I restored my computer back to before I used this program, boxed it up and returned it to Amazon. Amazon stood behind the purchase as always and gave great service. My advice--look for another program.

Where are all of the top-quality images?
I am a Macintosh fan and try not to have any Microsoft products on my computer, including Microsoft Word. So, I was dismayed when the instructions for this clip-art collection were in Microsoft Word. As far as I know, there are no other instructions on the web or anywhere else, and this company would not tell me over the phone how to use the software (unless I wanted to pay $10 extra.) I have fiddled with this program and as far as I can see, there are only about 100 images that are high quality. (Maybe there are more, but I have not been able to figure it out.) Even though this program only cost $30, I have not been able to come up with any images that are usable, and have not been able to come up with a complete set of instructions. I feel like I have been ripped off! ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Poor quality artwork compared with older versions
I agree with the reviewer who advised: "don't bother to upgrade." Compared with version 8 (which unfortunately has some printing problems under Windows XP), the quality of the artwork in version 15 is poor. Gone are many of the cartoons and genuinely humorous pictures, gone are the victorian prints and original art collections, which made the older version a pleasure to use, and offered really unusual material.

It's still a decent program. It is easy to use and gives you access to many images on the DVD or CDs as well as online. But the quality of those images is so-so, especially compared with older versions of the program.

junk software
Wouldn't install, Print Master or 3D. In fact 3D registered me but did not complete the installation and when I e-mailed Broderbund about this problem, I got no response what so ever. Tried to return this junk software and store wouldn't take it back.

Makes a Pleasure out of creating cards
I have had two previous Printmaster programs but this one, especially being on DVD, is a dream. Acccess to and download of two free card program editions from the Broderbund site has been a most pleasant experience. This version is so much more in content than the other two I have used.

don't bother upgrading
I bought a new computer with windows XP and decided if i was going to be running the newest Windows I should run the newest Printmaster. I upgraded from Platinum 11 and I'm sending back Platinum 15 and re-installing 11. More than half the images are online now. You get three art discs and have to sort through online garbage to get the rest. It's to get you to sign up for their Million image club for another $$. They took away some features and added nothing. Quality went down. Wait for them to bring it back up before upgrading.

Great Product
I recently purchased the new Printmaster Platnium 15, due to a new operating system (XP). I had used Print Artist for the past 5 years. I have only used the PrintMaster a few times in the last two weeks, but I already love it. The graphics are easily accessible, organized so they are quick to find. It is very easy to narrow your search with few key words or categories. The tutorials are very helpful and easy to understand. I've used the tutorials for photo editing, cropping, layering, etc. Everything so far seems very self-expanatory. The software was easy to load also. I was dreading having to switch to something new. I am very pleased and not a bit disappointed. I would recommend this product to anyone. My choice to buy this product was partly based on customer reviews I read. Thanks! ... Read more