User Friendly
Hemera 50,000 Photo Objects, Volume I and IIby Maria Joyouspirit, LACS How exciting to have 100,000 photo images just for the chosing ! These are 2 similar products that extend the quantity of photographic images anyone can use, with no background attached or surrounding the image, so that they can be used for almost any purpose, with a few legal exceptions [given below]. Each Volume I or II comes with 8 CDs, totals 16 for both, that are then separately inserted after having your having first chosen the image you want. Because all images are not installed on your computer, the excess space is not used up in advance. Thousands of images are on each CD. Additionally, a Photofont Maker is also provided to "add life to your text" with realistic, photographic quality textures. Installation A breeze, as they say, whoosh and the installation took less than 3 minutes. This is because all the images are not installed but selected as needed later. The product Users Guide booklet is short and sweet without a lot of reading to do before the simple installation Requirements recommended by Hemera.
How to Select an Image: This is the best part. Each Volume has a soft-back book that shows in full color a picture of all the images that are also viewable from the installed program. So leafing through a separate booklet helps to browse to see what is available. Most images are not separately exciting or artistic, but they are more practical, such as objects of daily use, or a fewer images of a person, e.g. a woman holding a video camera or doing yoga. Stoves, cameras, masks, telephones, audio-visual equipment, coins, musical instruments, skulls, a person exercising, shoes, antique tables and wood fancy boxes are just a very few of the multitude of objects. And of course, cooking utensils and religious objects too. Many many more images than one person can look at in one sitting. The installed program also shows a window with the images below a general verbal description, under the key words of Object, Category, and Description. I chose "[object] motorcycle 11 …[category] transportation…[description] yellow chopper hog". You can "select" and type in a word that may guide you to that kind of image, or chose a "category" to select what area you prefer. For example, the Transportation Category would include other vehicles from which to chose, as you can look over to see the images four at a time, all on the same screen. Then on the side a notice states "Please insert CD # 8 for…" to obtain that image on that CD for your use. All very conveniently and clearly readable and usable on only one screen. No having to go from screen to screen, but all the selection is available in one easily readable place. After putting in the appropriate CD, #8 in this case, a larger image of that item appears and then the selection of what kind of software the image will be used in is to be chosen. The choices are: 1- into Word processor, 2- into Slide presentation, 3- into Web authoring tool, 4- into Graphics application, or 5- into Exporting the image. The next Dialogue box now allows changes: to resize the image, to crop it, or adjust the resolution. Then you chose what the background you want to place in image into with an offer of a color palette. So I chose Purple, with this yellow chopper, and it became a WoW ! It is also possible to move the image within that solid color background, and to reduce the size of the item from 100%. This single image with a solid colored background was now ready to be "drag & Drop – Copy to Clipboard" to be used wherever I chose to do so. It could not have been easier, especially if you like motorcycles. I put this image into a Word document, enlarged the size to make a birthday card and it was striking. Remember, each is one image of one object and not a whole scene of any kind. But they can be combined over other scenes and backgrounds you may have, though not as a transparency. Like you would do in an opaque collage or paste-up. PhotoFont Maker for text The PhotoFont Maker is included in the initial installation, and a shortcut is put on your desktop unless you chose otherwise. So opening this program offers practically all the fonts you may already have on your computer, with a nice visible preview of it. You can see the text filled in with textures of many bright or unusual kinds, to" fill in" the letters as you desire. For example, the fill-in texture could be: american flag, colored beads, animal skins, blue water or blue leather, carrots, cardboard or christmas and much much more. So instead of solid colored letters and words, this program creates a bit more exciting filled-in lettering with in the font of your choice. Fun ! Imagine cutting out letters from wrapping paper and you have an idea of what the final appearance is like. The preview is fun to play with for a while, and making a final choice more difficult. Obviously the printed words can be placed over the images or anywhere you decide is most effective. Transparency However, both the photo objects and fonts do not support transparency, so you cannot overlay one image upon another one in a see-through way. Certain software may allow transparency, such as a "Graphics application that supports 32 bit images with a transparency mask. Selecting either TIFF with Transparency or Targa with Transparency may be available," but I did not try this out because the complexity is beyond my means and needs. Usefulness Applications of these images are unlimited based on your imagination, time and desire to please yourself and others. Building web pages, make cards, creating artistic scenes as collages, adding clever or ironic visuals to your correspondence if your friends allow HTML on emails, and of course the many ways printed images can be created and used are exciting possibilities. This would be a good program to those of you who like to be more creative in what you send out to others or if you like to do "collaging" cards that you print out after seeing the effect on your computer screen. Obviously if you want to advertise a product similar to a Hemera Photo Object image, you can use this instead of having to make a photograph yourself, such as a sale on Ebay or some other auction. If you like to just dress up your web site, personal start page, or play around with the images in any way, you may enjoy these multitude of separate photo images. Legal Limitations The Hemera company legal requirements state that "you May use any images in your own original work and publish, display and distribute your work in print. If you want to copyright ownership you must indicate both you and Hemera as licensor. But you may not resell, sublicense or otherwise make available the images for use or distributions separately or detached from a product or web page…images…may not be made available for downloading separately intended for permanent storage or reuse by OTHERS." In other words, the images are for your use only and not to be used commercially by others, obviously. So you "may not trademark or claim proprietary rights to …any of the images…. not rent, lease, sublicense…"etc. etc. It all makes sense. It is for your use, not to be sold in any commercial way. I have not needed to use Tech Support, happily, and I had no trouble finding quite a few images that would suit my taste to start playing around with and imagining what else these photos could be used for flyers, publications, announcements, greeting cards, business cards, nasty notes to bad politians and corporations, and so on. The price for both Vol I & II is $185. Maybe there is a sale somewhere for less. If only User Friendly would support a few graphics, I would have made this review more exciting with a picture of…..maybe a clown, or a boot..or…….. Hemera Technologies POB 79093 Hull, Quebec Canada J8Y 6V2 Fax 819-778-6252
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