It all started when three friends got together to create software applications
that could be bundled with hardware manufactured in Taiwan. Founded in 1989, Ulead, a Chinese name
meaning "Strength Through Friendship," began a tradition of providing a sophisticated
set of graphics programs in an easy-to-use environment at a price that the average person can
afford.
Ulead La Palette and Ulead iPhoto, novice image enhancement and painting tools, were the
first to be offered by Ulead. Two years later, a more popular software offering was added to
Ulead's lineup. Announced and shipped in 1991, PhotoStyler was the most sophisticated color
image-processing program designed for graphic artists, desktop publishers and photographers.
The product received rave reviews from respected industry publications as the first software
product to take full advantage of the capabilities of Windows. PhotoStyler received several
awards including Publish Magazine's 'Readers' Choice Award' for 1991 and 1993 and Windows
Magazine's 'Win 100 Award' for 1991. At that time, Adobe Photoshop was the most sophisticated
image-processing program for the Macintosh platform. In late 1991, Ulead forged a strategic
alliance with Aldus Corporation by granting them the exclusive worldwide publishing and
marketing rights for PhotoStyler.
The demise of PhotoStyler began in 1994 when Adobe acquired Aldus Corporation
(
http://www.seyboldreports.com/SRDP/0dp8/D0808003.HTM ).
Because Photoshop and PhotoStyler were competitors, and Photoshop already had great momentum,
Adobe decided to discontinue PhotoStyler
(
http://www.seyboldreports.com/SRDP/0dp9/D0903002.HTM ).
Photoshop was then offered as an upgrade to PhotoStyler users. Where was Ulead in all this?
Adobe negotiated with Ulead to not release another PhotoStyler-type product with CMYK
support for another five years. With check in hand, Ulead agreed.
The Birth of PhotoImpact
In March of 1996, Ulead announced PhotoImpact 3.0, and in September of that same year,
PhotoImpact with Web Extensions was introduced. Targeted as the best image editor for users
of Microsoft Office and Netscape Navigator, PhotoImpact was the first image editor to give
users the ability to produce impressive and bandwidth-efficient images for the Web. It also
was the first image editor to combine vector with raster graphics and include a GIF animation
tool in its package. Today, Ulead's GIF Animator is still the number one selling GIF animation
tool on the market.
In 1997, PhotoImpact 4 was released with even more added enhancements in Web imaging.
In 1999, PhotoImpact 5 enhanced both vector and Web graphics tools and offered exclusive
animated special effects like lighting and text effects. PhotoImpact 6 was released in
September 2000 and was the first image editor to offer complete HTML Web page output.
Now, with the release of PhotoImpact 7, these enhancements are expanded to include features
specifically for digital photographers such as advanced camera filters and enhanced batch
processing. Creative design tools include freehand vector drawing tools with outstanding
3D graphics creation. And for Web graphics, Version 7 adds more robust Web page creation
tools, advanced JavaScript effects as well as support for video, Flash, Java Applets and sound.
Ulead has achieved many firsts in its lifetime and the history of PhotoImpact touts
many of them. Being one of Ulead's flagship products, PhotoImpact is now one of the top
three mid-level image editors in the world. Ulead set the standard to provide users
with a sophisticated graphics program that is easy-to-use and consistently maintains
it with each version. The tradition will live on.
Note: Want to see an old review of PhotoStyler?
http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/software/photosty.html
Does the reviewer sound like he's talking about another product that you know and love? |
