RSSMicrosoft Discontinues Digital Image Product
By the Betanews Staff | Published June 15, 2007, 4:23 PM
Saying the functionality within the application is now available through other programs and within Windows Vista, Microsoft has decided to discontinue its Digital Image Suite Product, a notice on its Web site reads. Remaining products will be sold through retail outlets while supplies last, and the company will support users of the applications for up to three years from date of purchase or April 30, 2010, whichever is first.
Microsoft's application was a competitor of Adobe Photoshop Elements, a much-trimmed down version of its flagship Photoshop product. The company also recently has launched Expression Studio, which includes Expression Design, a professional illustration and graphic design tool. Windows Vista offers similar functionality to Digital Image, however with far fewer options.
Just like they did with the wonderfully engaging encyclopedia of science and natural history, Explorapedia, Microsoft sells the consumer on a product, lures them in, and then "poof", it's gone. No longer updated or supported. Get used to it, and learn to live around it.
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|hmmm...i thought it was clunky and useless
photoshop CS2 is much easier and more powerful
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|I always liked Microsoft Digital Image. And don't understand why they will not be coming out with new version anymore. I feel its the best Photo tool around for ease of use. Its very easy to use. Would be great if they add most of Microsoft Digital Image options to Vista SP1. But I really don't see that happening.
Microsoft Digital Image 2006 does work in Vista. But not with Aero support.
Thing like Clone Brush,Remove Dust are not built into Vista! And these are things I like a lot about Microsoft Digital Image!
I say bad move Microsoft.
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|I didn't even know this product still existed.
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|Doesn't wonder me a bit. Even the free Paint.net is much better than this crap.
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|They just might update Vista's tools to match the DIS code. Maybe with SP1, maybe regardless.
Completely discontinue the product is stupid, though. Maybe they should have released it as freeware or something, but that's just my opinion.
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|That's completely idiotic. I have DIS and Vista and Windows Photo Gallery is miles away from DIS.
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|Here You go:
http://fileforum.betanew...l/PaintNET/1096481993/1
... so ... no problem :-)
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|In other words, it wasn't good enough to compete!
--->Saying the functionality within the application is now available through other programs and within Windows Vista
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|Not that it couldn't have been. The changes since version 7 have hardly been worth the major version increases they were sold as. Instead of making it more capable and truly usable, the emphasis has been on dumbing it down more and more. For example, one annoying weakness of version 10 was that it couldn't remember custom crop or resize dimensions. This was commonly inconvenient when cropping or resizing for cell phones and other portable devices. Instead of addressing the real problem in version 11, Microsoft merely added a "wizard" to apply various presets that somebody decided were "optimal" for certain popular phone models. That's great if you're a noob who gets excited over accomplishing anything with your computer, but if you have a clue about what you want, the wizard's semantics will leave you guessing at whether you will or did get it.
Then there's the fact that Microsoft "extended" the PNG format without being clear about it. Sure, DIP gives you a choice between standard PNG and the clearly labelled "Picture It! PNG Plus" formats, and all PNG-compatible viewers can read PNG Plus, but nothing can resave it without clobbering the layers, not even Microsoft apps using Microsoft's own PNG graphics filter. Try to find that in the documentation. Or the KB for that matter. Here is Microsoft's total documentation on PNG Plus: "Save pictures with layers in the PNG Plus format if you want to be able to edit the layers." That's it. No warning that PNG Plus is substantially larger than PNG, with no easy way to identify and distinguish from standard PNG files. Not even a link to obscure, archived MSDN pages with incomplete specs.
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|Wow, that's such a classic MS move. With all the strides they've been making lately in cleaning up that behavior it's truly surprising to read your comment.
No wonder they are discontinuing the product; it sounds like a real POS. Paint.NET FTW!
Hahah, edit because this just reminded me of some of the worst that came out of Broderbund. LMAO
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