Special Photo Effects in Word

[Parrothead]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I just got Word 2008 and I can't seem to find the Picture Effects, which I previously could find under Special Effects for Pictures. It offered about 40 options like paint daubs, sponge, stained glass, torn edges, etc to apply to photo in a word doc. I have found Image effects in 2008, but its a really bizarre selection of distortion, stylize, color inversion, etc. Does it not exist anymore in the new Word or am I just not looking in the right place? Will I have to go buy a separate program now?

 

[CyberTaz]

It sounds like you've found what there is - for better or worse. 2008 uses a
completely redesigned graphics engine inherited from the Dark Side which
admittedly offers some nice enhancements but also excludes capabilities that
were previously available.

In all honesty I haven't really done a "detailed analysis" because I've
never really entrusted graphic design to a word processing program in the
first place I've historically used decent graphic editors to finalize
images of any significance before turning them over to a text-based
application and generally found it to be well worth the time & money.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Parrothead]

Thanks. I was afraid of that. I've postponed learning to use a graphics program as I once played with Photoshop a little & found it a bit overwhelming. It sounds as though it's time to get something. Would the average layperson need the full Photoshop or would Elements be good enough (or another program)?

 

[Clive Huggan]

Dear [whoever],

Photoshop Elements is fine for most people. I did a Photoshop training
course but frankly I have hardly needed to use the features that aren't in
Elements.

Having said that, iPhoto gets better and better with each version; I find
that for much of my work I only use Photoshop / Photoshop Elements to clean
up or obliterate with the cloning tool (because the iPhoto Touch-up Tool is
woeful) -- but Photoshop Elements' other capabilities are marvellous when I
need them. There are some excellent books on Photoshop Elements available.

Friends of mine swear by Pixelmator, which is cheaper. I had a quick look at
it and it seems good.

Apple's Pages application -- part of the inexpensive iWork suite -- is
excellent for modest (i.e., not too ambitious) page layout work, is easy to
master, and very fast to create a publication in. You need to freely amend
the pre-existing templates unless you want everything looking like it comes
from 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, but that too is easy to do.

For magazines that my wife and I publish as PDFs, file size can be a problem
if there are lots of photos (and is much more of a problem with Pages than
with InDesign). Also, some Pages templates are worse than others in this
respect. ImageWell is an excellent application for fairly precise control
of image file sizes before inserting into the page layout application or
e-mailing, putting on web pages.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the Americas and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
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