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(More customer reviews)First, the disclaimer. Yes, I received this via Amazon Vine and received it for free. I review all my items via Vine as if I actually purchased them myself.
CorelDRAW Premium Suite actually contains 3 separate software packages. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5, Corel VideoStudio Pro X3 and WinZip 14 Plus (Standard). It actually contains WinZip 14.5 but the Plus is the only equivalent I could find on Amazon's website.
After reading my review, if you are still undecided, Corel is good enough to actually offer a 30 day free, fully functional trial which you can download over the Internet. Just do a Google search(or your preferred search engine) for CorelDRAW Premium Suite X5 and you should be taken to the Corel X5 website where you can download the free trials. Just a warning though, the download sizes are pretty large.
My first advice, once you've decided on purchasing the software, is to be careful what you click on while installing or opening an application for the first time; ASSUMING YOU DOWNLOAD IT (if you don't download it, ignore the following as it doesn't happen on the disc version). They ask during installation to install Google Chrome/Google Toolbar, neither of which will do anything for the included application suite. You can install them if you want, but it kind of annoys me that a person would be expected to spend upwards of $650 (Corel's MSRP) for the software, only to also have Corel include the added revenue stream of advertising for Google. That's just a pet peeve of mine and your mileage will vary.
Included in Graphics Suite X5 (the main part of the application) are:
Corel Capture X5 - This program is pretty cool. It takes a little learning, but it allows you to capture all sorts of different inputs. You can perform simple screen shots, do a screen capture of a small area of the screen and even create video files of animation. The latter would be useful for creating say, documentation for a process on the PC that is perhaps easier to show than to explain. Very nice indeed!
Corel Connect - This is a tool that will search your hard drive for content that can be used in any of the Corel Suite applications. It can be as limited or robust as you want it to be in terms of thoroughness of the search. Once you find the content you want to use, you drag and drop it to the bottom of the screen and you can choose which Corel Suite application you want to open it with from there.
Corel Photo Paint X5 - Wow. This is Corel's answer to Adobe Photoshop CS5. Having never actually used the latest version of PhotoShop CS5, I can only compare the power of Photo Paint X5 to my copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 [OLD VERSION]. And it definitely blows that out of the water with ease in terms of features and capability. The only other Photoshop I've used is version 6 and this easily bests that as well... but it SHOULD because it is almost 10 years newer than that version of Photoshop.
With Photo Paint X5 you will, if you've used any flavor of Photoshop new or old, have to get adjusted to terminology differences. Instead of layers Corel calls them "Masks." There are similar differences throughout; perhaps Adobe has copyrights on those terms? I don't know.
Of all the applications in the Suite, this is by far my favorite. It allows you to make all sorts of edits to photographs, add endless effects to it, touch up photographs and anything else you could possibly want to do with a photo editor. If you're just a beginner or hobbyist, this might be too much for you starting out, which is why the video tutorials Corel includes are AWESOME additions to the set. I'll get more on that later on down the review.
Corel Draw X5 - Again; wow. This is Corel's answer to Adobe Illustrator CS5. I've personally never used Illustrator for anything other than one off playing and can't do a real hard comparison for you on this; hopefully someone else can do this for readers?
In terms of what Draw X5 does, you can create just about any graphic your heart may desire (assuming you have the skill, which sadly, I do not). This program allows you to do vector illustration, page layout, tracing and Web graphics with ease. It is feature rich and the quick start option you receive when first opening the application is rather helpful in trying to explain how to get to work. Also really helpful for the beginner is the inclusion of the Hints bar on the right side of the screen, which provides links to the things they believe you will want to know while creating your graphics.
Duplexing Wizard - this is just a tool to help you duplex (double sided printing) on printers that don't offer that option in hardware. It has a use, but as my printer does hardware duplex printing, I don't have much use for it. If you don't have that luxury though, setting up manual duplex printing with this application is pretty simple. A nice addition that you may or may not find a use for. If you already know how to do manual duplex printing with your printer, then it probably doesn't have much use at all.
Corel Video Studio X3 - This is the one "disappointing" piece in this Suite. This would be Corel's answer to, I believe, Adobe Premiere Elements 9 (Win/Mac). It doesn't seem to be as feature rich as the Draw and Paint applications. It is useful, but not as robust, in my opinion, as what is offered in Paint and Draw. That's why it's disappointing, not because I think it is a bad application. Just more basic than the other pieces in the suite.
What Video Studio X3 does is allow you to edit video and turn them into just about any output you can imagine. You can output to DVD, Blu Ray, YouTube, Vimeo and even export to "Mobile Device" (iPod, PSP, Mobile Phone and Windows Pocket PC). This is a nice option as you can also use X3 to convert home videos to use with your mobile device.
You can import from several devices, such as a digital camcorder and you can even import from DVD (assuming it isn't copy protected).
One thing missing from X3 is the Hints bar that both Draw and Paint include, which is disappointing. It isn't entirely intuitive. You won't be installing this and getting off to a running start, unless you have previous experience with another Video Studio version.
WinZip 14.5 - what can I say, it's a program used to create Zip files. Most PCs come with the capability to create them right out of the box. So what does this offer that your host operating system may not? Well, it is more fully featured. It has a drag and drop style interface and can also more highly compress, supposedly, whatever content you throw at it... assuming you are willing to use the zipx format instead of zip. The problem with the zipx format is that if you send a file to someone with say, Windows 7, they will need something other than the built in zip file feature to open it (probably need a copy of WinZip, of course). This can be kind of annoying if you frequently share compressed Zip files with people.
You can also, if you so desire, encrypt your zip files (can't do that out of the box in Windows for sure), create self extracting zip files (useful for those people above who don't have zipx file opening capability), multipart zip files (multiple zip files that you can set the maximum size of each part of the file; this was useful when we had only floppy discs but in the era of the ubiquitous DVD/CD burner or USB storage device, the usefulness is limited) and you can choose the level of compression.
WinZip is nice, but it's not something I'd buy separately in all honesty. Especially with an MSRP of $50. $10? Sure. $50? No way.
Swish MiniMax2 - create Flash video animations. It's simplistic and doesn't come with a huge host of information. I don't have much use for Flash video creation so I didn't spend much time with it.
Website Creator - Another simplistic offering, but sort of useful if you have to build a functional, basic site from "scratch" quickly. It is functional, and it seems to offer a large amount of customizability, but it isn't easy and intuitive to setup quickly. At least it wasn't/hasn't been for me.
Swish Max 3 - A fuller featured version of Swish. There are a couple of examples of what you can do with it, but it seems focused more on banner ads than anything else. I'm not good at using it, so I can't make more comment than this. It doesn't seem to be intuitive, which is why I didn't get up and running right from the start, which is kind of disappointing. In the scope of the package though, at best this and Swish MiniMax would drop the value of the package by a miniscule amount; you don't buy this suite for Flash video creation.All of the above being said, another very, very nice feature included with this package is video tutorials for Paint and Draw. If you've ever wanted to know how to use a feature in a program but have a difficult time following text based instructions, you'll enjoy this feature immensely. Just about every feature in Draw and Paint have video tutorials available. I don't know if Adobe offers similar options with it's current packages, but back in the day this is the type of thing Adobe would have charged extra for and it...Read more›
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CorelDRAW Premium Suite X5 is premium design software that opens you up to new web possibilities, while supporting traditional illustration, tracing and graphic design needs with new and enhanced tools. Built on the renowned CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5, it introduces website creation, video editing, and flash animation software, so you can engage your audience with greater impact than ever before! Build standout websites with the help of dozens of templates and site styles. Create interactive flash animations with over 350 built-in multimedia effects. Even edit video and quickly create high-definition movies with 30 creative templates. Now you can do even more than you thought possible!
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