Serif CraftArtist Platinum Edition

i have tried many programmes for drawing and photoshop and all of them are hard to work, nearly all of them require you to have knowledge of graphic design or above. not this one, this is the easiest one out there and you don’t have to be a great computer whizz or be a graphic designer/engineer. i’m more into calligraphy and illumination, but this is addictive and i can incorporate this with my other callighraphy work. i tried the demo version to start with. My mother urged me to buy the full version. I’m glad i did, this does everything i can’t do by hand, it lets you pick any kind of background for your paper you want, it prints out the colours wonderfully, the colour picker lets you choose any colour you want to print out, there are materials that you can cut, crop, re-size, change colour, ect. The scissors tool is excellent you have a whole range of cutting lines/shapes of cutting blades:pinking shears, shark cut, bump cut to name a few. There is also the shadow tool which gives you a 3d look to your pictures. You can mix and match digikits, you can change the shape and size and colour of embellishments, you can rotate them as well, i havent tried all the features of the full version so i cant say too much about the other tools yet. Photoshop is built in, i haven’t tried that side of it yet because i don’t have any photo’s on this computer, which by the way is quite an old computer and the programme works flawlessly. no locking up or freezing. The version i bought comes with four other discs, scrapbooking, wedding day, greetings cards, and baby photo’s. There are a lot of digikits that come with these discs and a lot more on the daisy trail site, the kits range from free to about $10. When i loaded all the discs into the computer i must have at well over 40 digikits that were already included, really not bad for starting out, and the craft artist platinum is a really great price too. I was going to purchase a cricut imagine but now i’m not going to. if i want to use my cricut with colour then i can just pick a background from daisy trail digikits then print out the shapes with my new coloured cardstock i made with daisy trail. This programme also gives you the templates for gift boxes and cupcake holders and other gift items. if you don’t like them then as i said just find a background you like from a digikit print it out then use the cricut box making cartridge with your cricut machine. i might purchase the cricut expression 2 buts thats a maybe.
So this programme gets a 5/5 from me and i’m just starting out with this. As i said there are other programmes out there but they are complicated and hard to navigate round and also extremely expensive, so if your into digital scrapbooking or card making or gift making then this really is perfect. My mother is 71 and has been doing daisy trail for the last seven years and she finds it extremely easy to work and now has me addicted to this programme. I even purchased the craft artist 2 and i’m a newbee on this side of crafting.

GO GET IT PEOPLE!!

You have to go online to buy themes and such. Standard themes comes with software. It is not that user friendly to me.

I bought this after reading all of the horrible reviews about Printmaster and all the glowing reviews about this product. I wanted to create things that I used to use Printmaster for. I wanted to make a calendar. Nope, no templates. I had to buy a Calendar creation program. Then I wanted to make a printable birthday banner. Sorry, no template. I ended up going to Microsoft’s website and downloading one for Word. The other reviewer was correct – you are always directed to the website so they can squeeze more money out of you as if spending $60 for this useless program wasn’t enough. What a joke. I really do not understand why anyone would give this product a favorable review. I’ll never buy another Serif product again.

I’ve used similar products in the past. Unfortunately, when I updated to a Windows 7, 64 bit laptop, my old programs didn’t work. I’ve been searching for a ‘go to’ replacement program. Serif CraftArtist Platinum fits most of my requirements. I’m still looking for a greeting card program & recently purchased The Print Shop v.23 (JC) which so far has been filling my needs.

When I installed the update, this Platinum Edition updated to CraftArtist Professional.

Although this is a craft program, greeting cards & popup cards can be made with it too…quotes are included & generic sentiments, such as: Happy 20th Anniversary; You have a boy; It’s great to be 8, etc.

For your projects, you can choose from template, blank project or make & do project. Choosing template or make & do, can give you ideas to design your own project.

A large variety of craft projects are included: posters, scrapbooks, photobooks, albums, popup cards, flyers, inserts, menu cards, table plans, greeting cards, cupcake wrappers, invitations, confetti cones & stands, party masks, pinwheels, bunting flags & more!
In the gift wrap category: gift bags with various shapes; square, rectangular, sliding gift boxes, a pillow box & 8-sided gift box & more; & a variety of tags. I made the pillow box & it turned out great. Even though helpful instructions are included on the right side of the project, I still had a small learning curve & experimented with different ideas. The included video tutorials, user guide, & forums are helpful for getting the most use from this program.

In photobook you are able to view two pages at once which will be handy for panoramic photos. You do can do this by adding a blank page.

Amazon’s Product Description covers the features of the program so I’m not going to reiterate them. You will need to register at Daisy Trails to use some of them.

This is a great program! I’ve been turning to Serif products more & more. The ones I’ve used are high quality & loaded with useful features, and, for me, most of them, have a slight learning curve.

UPDATE: I am used to having an option to print quarter-fold greeting cards. This program doesn’t have that option; it seems to use pre-made cards. So I added a grid to blank, letter size paper. However the grid didn’t have a line that went down the horizontal or vertical center of my paper. It was taking me too long to figure out how to center the design. I finally opened PrintShop 23.1 and pasted my design on a blank quarter-fold card & printed it. As I mentioned earlier, greeting cards are not the primary focus of this program. I’ll be working with the grid off & on; hopefully I’ll be able to center it.

I have worked with many Craft CD’s, but this one is useless. It could be me, I cannot get my head around this one. I find it a very very unfriendly piece of software.