Before purchasing PhotoImpact Ver. 11 ???

[Grafixman]

Too true, PI seems to be directed more and more to the point and click crowd. It's being packed with photo and print wizards designed to make the job easier for the home user. Maybe the Ulead people decided they'd never be able to grab a decent piece of the Painter and Photoshop market.
That said, the recent Xara Xtreme also headed in an unexpected direction...
New consumers and wider user base seems to be the way to go...

[gidgit]

Yea, new markets... thing is they could have gone and done both directions by now, and kept their regular customers happier in the process.

The paint tools should have come in v7... can you imagine the zmerge tool, a more standardized set of paint tools, the new browser toolbar, and the newest web stuff that came with, all coming out in one version. Add to that a better gradient methodology (even Canvas has an easier to use gradient tool than PI ), some first level transition handles on picker c/w last op options like found in Xara, better default settings all the way around...

wow, that would have rocked the 2d world, and certainly would have made up some ground from 5 to 7...

6 was ok in the newer web stuff, and aspect on trans scale, but that was pretty much it eh, give or take whatever...

nah, ULead has milked this way too long, and now needs to really focus in on a set of tools that truly work better in the artist's favour... I mean photo's are cool too, no doubt, but meat and potatoes stuff comes first for an all around editing app with such potential as found with PI...