CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6

Let's not beat around the bush: Most graphic design professionals use the very expensive powerhouse pack of apps known as Adobe Creative Suite (about $1,700 street, 4.5 stars, and our Editors' Choice) for editing images, designing pages, creating new graphics, and building websites. But Adobe isn't the only option for design professionals, especially those who don't need the whole kit and caboodle. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 ($499 direct; $199 upgrade) is a viable option for anyone who doesn't need the heavy-duty Adobe package, and isn't a Mac user. CorelDRAW is Windows-only. But it has a few new tools and features in this most recent version make it more versatile than ever before.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 comprises seven parts, all told. Within the suite, you'll find two major applications?the namesake CorelDRAW, a vector and illustration program, and Photo-Paint for image editing?and a handful of utilities: bitmap converter PowerTrace, site designing tool Website Creator, screen-capture utility Capture, full-screen browser utility Connect, and an export plug-in utility called PhotoZoom Pro 2.

Version 6 brings new features and several spruced-up tools that enable CorelDRAW to be used for new purposes, especially text-heavy designs (light page design, that is) and websites. Perhaps the two most significant changes for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 are that it now supports 64-bit and multi-core machines. However, as mentioned, it's only built for Windows, with no Mac version available, which is a major drawback for many artistic professionals.

Overall Enhancements
Aside from the added support for 64-bit and multi-core machines (which effectively makes the program faster and more responsive), Corel has added a number of new tools for designers, those dealing in both print and online materials. There are hundreds of video tutorials that are very good at showing off what's new while also teaching you tricks and tips.

Across a few of the apps in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is a tray for storing images you may want to use in your work, which has been spruced up nicely for version X6. The tray now includes little checkboxes that let you search Fotolia, Flickr, iStockPhoto, and other online sites, to find images for use. When you find an image, you can drag it to the tray to save it for later. X6 also now supports multiple trays, which appear neatly at the bottom of the screen as tabs. You can name the tabs, letting you organize your searches more effectively. Another great option here is the ability to drop a URL into the search bar and see all the graphics assets that appear on that page. Web designers in particular will find this tool handy.

A few more additions on the Web design side, in Corel Website Creator X6, help non-coders build pages with ease. Dozens of templates and Site Styles remove much of the programming pains of Web design.

What's New in CorelDRAW?
CorelDRAW has a slightly more streamlined look, now that the object docker has been cleaned up to group tools together when appropriate.

A few new features make CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 more multi-functional by turning it into a light page design program, which it hasn't really been before. For example, CorelDRAW now has a page-numbering feature, better abilities to change page layout sizes, a new Lorem Ipsum tool to insert placeholder text, and a button that lets you align and lock text to the baseline grid. These are necessary features for page designers and digital artists anytime they're working on text-heavy designs, such as marketing materials and brochures.

Corel has added more fonts, too, which again increases the value of the product for print designers by a shot.

For artists who are less concerned with text, the vector drawing program includes a few new shaping tools as well that "smear," "twirl," "attract," and "repel," objects or points on lines to transform their shapes. The twirl tool lets you quickly spin an object into something new simply by selecting the object and pressing the mouse. The attract tool pulls together points that you select, while repel does the opposite. The smear tool is surprisingly unsmudgy, creating even and symmetrical contours in whichever direction you pull the shape, rather than adding blurry edges. I can easily imagine graphic designers using these tools to make quick iterations on their artwork, without having to adjust every point by hand. They're quick, produce clean results, and are fun.

My favorite new feature is Color Harmonies, which let you set a color palette, then "spin" it on the color wheel so that all the relationships between colors stay intact while changing the actual output. See the slideshow?to get a better look at some of these features.

What's New in Corel Photo-Paint?
The second of the two major apps in Graphics Suite X6, Photo-Paint, has fewer noticeable changes, although one new tool called the smart carver does stand out. The smart carver lets you select an object in an image and remove it, then tighten up the space left behind and patch up the area formerly covered by the object with the right background. It's a real wizard of a tool, but certainly not the first of its kind, similar to Photoshop's "content-aware fill."

The difference with Corel's tool is lets you not only delete an object, but the space taken up by that object as well without otherwise changing the proportions in the rest of the image. It works great if the image you have is too wide or tall for the space you need, and the part of the image you'd like to cut out in the middle.

The Underdog
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 turns Corel's vector art app and image editing tool into programs with much greater functionality. New features upgrade the suite to make it more usable for graphic designers who work in a number of different mediums, including page design and Web design. Because Corel is still an underdog to Adobe, it's rather mind-boggling why the company made Graphics Suite X6 for Windows only, which is a major drawback for many artistic professionals who might otherwise consider using the tool. If you're a dedicated Corel user, X6 adds enough to warrant the upgrade, but if you're looking for a reason to ditch Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 isn't it.

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