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Photo Impact X3 Review

PhotoImpact X3 is the last version of the Photo Impact product line.  There has been no new releases of the software since 2007 but is still available for $30 or less at Corel

PhotoImpact X3 works just fine on Windows 7 and Windows 8

See our CorelDraw X6 Review here. Other new reviews Windows 8 Review and our Software as Subscription

PhotoImpact purchases, downloads and patches have disappeared from very convenient locations on both the Corel.com and Ulead.com Websites but you can still find it in the Corel Store for very good price.  (PhotoImpact X3 works on Windows 7 64 bit and Windows 8 64bit).

We keep this review active because PhotoImpact has powerful professional class image editing on the cheap.  It works with Windows 8 and some features are more familiar to us than in the CorelDraw X6 Graphics suite

The discontinuation of the product is problematic for us.  We have thousands of files in the native PhotoImpact file format of UFO which supports objects and layers.  To our knowledge, the only way to preserve these objects is to save them as .PSD files (a native Adobe Photoshop format) and then open the files in Corel Draw or Corel Draw PhotoPaint (or Adobe Photoshop at the high end and Adobe Photoshop Elements (see our Adobe Photoshop Elements opinions here - we hate it)

PhotoImpact X3 seems to work well on Windows 7  and Windows 8 for us although there may be some issues for some users (on our Win7 machine, the OK / Cancel buttons have disappeared when we save a .jpg but hitting enter saves it or esc seems to cancel the save - the problem could be Win 7 or graphics driver

We have been using PhotoImpact since version 6, in about 1996 or 1998.  We have used PhotoImpact version 8, Version 10, Photo Impact XL, Version 11, Version 12 and now PhotoImpact X3

Best Buy Return Policy Review 
We've just became aware that a government ID is now required for ALL Best Buy returns and the ID is RECORDED by Best Buy
read our review - we appologize but hate it so much we posted this interrupt on many of our pages

CorelDraw (also known as Corel Draw)  and Corel PhotoPaint (also known as Corel Photo Paint) are our 2nd most favorite Graphics Program.  We are not professional reviewers or selling these products, we actually used PhotoImpact and we actually use CorelDraw

Corel bought the PhotoImpact product line from Intervideo which owned Ulead in late 2006.

 PhotoImpact 12, PhotoImpact X3 and are not listed on the Windows 7 Compatibility list

The Corel Image product line has been consolidated, dispersed, mixed and matched and mixed up with the update and acquisition of product lines.

PhotoImpact was a versatile, inexpensive and popular product that had significant distribution and market share world wide

Ulead and PhotoImpact had a reputation of adding new features and components, and maintaining the features in its image products.

Corel has a history of adding new features and then eliminating them a version or two later.

We are annoyed and PO'd that the Corel Draw X6 Suite does not have filters for PhotoImpact native formats (and Corel Draw X6 and Corel Photo-Paint X6 cannot save in the .ico format).

Corel has released CorelDraw X6 - we use it and have learned to trust it

PhotoImpact X3

Highlights:

- There probably will not be future versions of PhotoImpact

- PhotoImpact native file formats cannot be directly converted to CorelDraw Corel PhotoPaint or any other Corel image editor

- Native PI files (.UFO - files with objects and layers must be converted to .PSD (Adobe PhotoPaint format in order that the objects are preserved

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See our Review of CorelDraw, Corel PhotoPaint and other Corel image products for reviews about these products.