Adobe ImageStyler San Jose CA

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Originally published at Internet.com

Adobe's ImageStyler can lift a burden from the backs of graphics professionals who have learned by rote the contortions needed to produce slick Web graphics with general-purpose image editors. It can likewise flatten the learning curve for beginners not eager to master Photoshop.

This flexible application adds eye-catching special effects to graphic Web objects, using customizable styles and tools that make it easy to build — and later edit — complex buttons, navbars, banners, or JavaScript rollovers. Yet its object-oriented approach leaves you free to modify any object separately during the entire process.

ImageStyler (available for both Windows and Mac OS) is easy enough to use that beginners can master it in an hour or two, and it has enough options to gratify the active imagination of a professional. Friendlier than Adobe's other Web-centric editor, ImageReady, and with features you won't find in other automated Web graphics tools, such as NetStudio, ImageStyler has carved out its own niche.

ImageStyler's interface bears a cursory resemblance to Photoshop and other Adobe products, but its tools and palettes are all oriented to Web graphics. The only painting tool is a Paint Bucket. If you need to tweak pixels, you can manipulate an image in Photoshop or another editor first, then place it in ImageStyler. It supports most bitmap formats, and you can drag-and-drop between applications. You can also create an object from scratch using one of dozens of predefined shapes (ranging from umbrellas and trees to typographical dingbats), or create plain rectangles, ovals, rounded rectangles, or polygons (with three to 10 sides).

The fun begins once you have an object or two to play with. ImageStyler includes more than 100 different surface styles, such as wood, lava, and metal with raised, depressed, and shadowed textures, and complex gradients. Each style is actually a set of layered effects, so if you have a button that has been beveled, outlined, given a drop shadow, and overlaid with a gradient, you can turn each of those effects on or off independently. This offers the flexibility of applying only some of the elements of a style to an object, and the freedom to experiment without destroying your previous edits. ImageStyler also has multiple levels of Undo: A drop-down menu lists all the effects applied to an object, and you can select which effect to eliminate. If you change your mind, any action reversed can be redone later on.

Double-clicking a style promptly applies the corresponding effect (some elaborate effects took several seconds to appear, even on our 400-MHz Pentium II with 256 Mbytes of RAM), so dozens of looks can be previewed almost as rapidly as you can click their icons. Styles can be customized, using any of ImageStyler's full complement of effects tools. For example, you can apply gradients, control an object's opacity, and add filters such as Twirl or Spherize, and then save the combination as a new Style that can be applied to different objects in subsequent editing sessions.

Each object is also placed in its own layer, so you can add text, apply effects, or perform other manipulations, yet edit each object at any time. Objects can be stacked, grouped, aligned, rotated, skewed, or resized using commands familiar to Adobe Illustrator users.

As with other applications, you can save yourself repetitive steps by duplicating objects. ImageStyler goes a step further with the capability of creating "alias" duplicates that remain linked to the original object. Any changes made to the original are passed along to each of its duplicates. This is a fast way to create a set of buttons in different shapes, then simultaneously apply a new gradient, drop shadow, or other effect to all of them. For example, if you wanted to have all of a page's buttons shaped like pumpkins one month, and Thanksgiving turkeys the next, the update could take only a few mouse clicks.

ImageStyler can even create image maps or write JavaScript for you. To generate fly-over buttons, just drag an object onto the JavaScript palette, define actions or appearance for MouseOver, MouseDown, or MouseOut states, attach a URL if desired, and then export to create a set of images and HTML code with an AutoLayout feature, which uses tables and JavaScript to duplicate the effect you just designed.

Another unusual feature is ImageStyler's batch replacement capability. It can search through your existing HTML pages and replace H1-H6 headings with styled text or graphics, retaining the original wording that appeared in the heading. This turns plain pages into graphic showcases.

Pros: Attractive and easy to use, minimal learning curve, useful batch replacement feature
Cons: Low-level manipulation tasks require a separate editor, lacks some advanced features