DrawPlus X4 (PC)

My experience of GoldStone Books was good until today. After trying to install the copy of DrawPlus X4 (PC) they supplied I discovered that, because it is now 15 years out of date, it is no longer supported and thus impossible to install because there is no longer a Product Code to enter or register. Even the default activation code was no use. My advice, make sure you are buying up to date software.

This Serif photoshop is perfect just what I need to help me with my design work.

If, like me, you thought you might save some money on designers etc., and create your own designs then you are mistaken. Unless you're already an expert in using similar drawing software, save your money. This product is actually quite hard for a beginner to use (unlike Serif Pageplus which is a great product that I've been using that for years). I was hoping to create a simple logo using pictures and some text, as well as convert some of my line drawings for use in a PDF. Unfortunately even though I followed the video and forum instructions precisely, it did not work. The community support is full of tech geeks who assume everyone already has a degree in design. I imagine this is a great product for those who are already experts in using adobe or similar but wanted a cheaper alternative. For everyone else, save up until you can afford a designer or find a very good illustration stock site and buy a licence to use a photo or picture that closely relates to what you need. Otherwise be prepared to waste hours trying to work out how to use Drawplus X4, end up being frustrated to the point of smashing up your technology with a hammer whilst fuming in the knowledge that you threw £80 down the toilet. I really wish I had spent my money on the Pageplus upgrade to X5 (which the sales person failed to tell me was coming). Serves me right for being suckered by the Serif salesman.

I bought this as my old Corel Draw package had been made redundant with Windows 7; very annoying but another story. This is the old version being sold at discount price. In order to get it working you have to call Serif for a code to enter. They then do everything to avoid giving you the code and play a hard sell to buy the upgrade at considerably increased cost. I fell for it and bought the upgrade; it works extremely well and I'm very pleased with the performance. The upgrade also comes with paperback manuals which are very useful as some commands are not intuitive. Zoom for instance is on the bottom right rather than in a tool bar - bizarre! After all that, you get continual emails about promotions which fill your email inbox and seem to be impossible to stop. Good product, pity about the service

I got really frustrated with this program, after I loaded it in i had to uninstall and do it all again twice, more human error than computer error, then when I finally got it installed it kept crashing my computer. So not happy with it. After a couple of attempts another time when the same happened again I gave up. :(

Serif DrawPlus has been around for many years, a constant reminder that quality illustration software doesn't have to be expensive, or difficult to use. The latest DrawPlus X4 release takes the package further and fixes a few long-standing issues, adding even more versatility and some major new features. Compatibility is better and DrawPlus X4 can handle the basic formats (JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, TIFF) and many others (PSD, PDF, EPS), but it's also able to work with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) files. These can produce very small files, are supported by web browsers, and are text-based, so their content may be indexed by search engines, a great choice for many online graphics projects. If you still spend considerable time with bitmaps, you'll appreciate the new PhotoLab, an excellent tool for editing and optimising digital images. This provides one-click fixes for brightness, lighting, colour balance, noise removal and more. Colour balance, lighting and other tweaks are just a slider away and there are a host of effective special effects to convert photos into works of art. PhotoLab is a welcome addition to DrawPlus X4. There is a whole range of new illustration options to help you deliver better results, in less time. Blend modes provide the ability to combine objects' colour, brightness, texture and more. How well this works depends on the sources, but it's easy to use, and is very helpful when blending brush strokes over textured backgrounds for example. Extended colour tools include the colour picker, which is now able to pick an average colour from an area, perfect for dithered or noisy backgrounds or draw a line on the screen to sample the colour gradient, the colours in a sunset, for instance, then turn this into a custom gradient fill. If you use a graphics tablet then you'll appreciate the new Pressure Studio, which lets you test the effect of soft and hard pen strokes, and customise a pressure profile that ensures they deliver the results you need and improvements elsewhere include higher quality and better organised brushes, easier text selection, a Path text tool, and a convenient Object Info Pane. The improvements in other areas aren't quite so significant, but still work to enhance the program's capabilities across a whole range of areas. Redesigned connector tools simplify the process of creating flow charts and tree diagrams, for instance; a new auto dimensioning tool will help you produce scale diagrams and architectural drawings; and enhanced PDF support allows DrawPlus X4 to work as a capable PDF editor. And of course all this comes on top of the pile of features that were already in DrawPlus X3: excellent vector graphics tools, RGB, CMYK, Pantone and HSL support, the ability to create stop frame and key frame Flash animations (which you can also use as screensavers), and plenty of web graphics options (image slices, rollovers, animated navbars), amongst many others. There are times when all this functionality can become a little too much. On a couple of occasions we launched the Help file to try and track down a missing feature, for example, only to discover it was accessible from a button that had been right in front of us, all along. It doesn't take too long to learn where everything is, though, and the excellent documentation, tutorials and on-screen "how to" advice will help you quickly master the basics and many of the more advanced topics too.

I can’t write a proper review as this was bought as a present! However, I can review the seller - the disc arrived really quickly, and was as advertised. I would definitely recommend them and would be happy to purchase from them again in the future.

Didnt work but no prob with refund