Alchemy Mindworks

In transitioning from Graphic Workshop Professional 3 to the new version 4 application, we’ve updated a lot of the functionality in the software. Some of the changes are subtle – you’ll notice them if they affect your use of Graphic Workshop.

Some of them are decidedly worth mentioning… very loudly. We’ve tried to avoid assigning the greatest volume to the ones that were the most difficult to implement.

The following are a few of the better new features, enhancements and cool toys to look forward to in the upcoming release of Graphic Workshop Professional 4.

• Enhanced Resizing: One of the “work in progress” aspects of Graphic Workshop Professional 3, the image resizing filters of the version 4 software have gotten as close to perfection as anyone here is likely to dare suggest. They’re masterfully cunning at automatically filtering the graphics they resize, to abolish even a whisper of image aberrations. This said, they still offer the option of manual control of their filter selections, just in case you feel that you’re still more cunning.
• Intelligent Overwrite Prompting: Unless you like to live dangerously, and you disable the Prompt Before Overwriting Files option in Graphic Workshop, you’ll probably have noticed that the current release of the software will tell you when it’s about to overwrite a file, but not much else. Some files deserve to be overwritten, but you’d probably like to know you’re looking at one of them before you click on Ok. In Graphic Workshop Professional 4, you’ll be able to view a thumbnail of your prospective victims before you consign them to eternity. The overwrite prompt will also allow you to send soon-to-be-overwritten files to the Windows recycle bin, rather than just nuking them and chuckling demonically.
• Smarter View Mode: The Graphic Workshop Professional 4 View mode is quicker, and it features additional navigation and management options. We’ve also enhanced the already rich palette of its image processing filters. The new image stitching and color separation filters seem deserving of special mention. We’ve enhanced and fine-tuned a substantial number of the existing filters as well. The graphics in this posting have been processed with the Shadow filter.
• Windows 7 Theme: If you’ll be running Graphic Workshop Professional 4 under Windows 7, you’ll be able to select the Seven theme for it to keep its graphic user elements consistent with the rest of Windows 7. We’re particularly proud of the general level of sneakiness of this theme, in that it loads its graphics from various Windows 7 system libraries when it starts up, rather than storing its glyphs as part of itself. This makes it small and memory-efficient – it also addresses any troublesome intellectual property issues that might have arisen out of our swiping icons from Windows. As an aside, Graphic Workshop Professional 4 comes with an updated and enhance Resource Extractor application, which we used to find the icons for this theme.
• Expanded Documentation: Graphic Workshop Professional’s extensive manual is one of its most overlooked features – it will get you up to speed quickly for even the most involved aspects of the software, and with a minimum of head-shaped dents in your walls. It’s been revised, expanded and rewritten in places for Graphic Workshop Professional 4, lavishly illustrated – albeit with screen captures from Graphic Workshop, for the most part – and restructured to make finding what you’re after still more effortless. We’d have made it clairvoyant, but there’s at least one software patent on that.
• Bulletproof Installer: The installer that deployed Graphic Workshop Professional 3 was robust, flexible, intuitive and compact – but from time to time, it bumped its head against overly-paranoid Windows security tyrants that seemed to assume that any attempt to add software to the computers they were protecting was inherently suspicious. The new installer access the Windows installation database, which should still the quavering nerves of even the twitchiest virus checker.
• Updated EXE Pictures and Screen Savers: Graphic Workshop’s capacity for turning your graphics into Windows executables – self-displaying pictures – and Windows screen savers has gotten even better in version 4. Based on Alchemy Mindworks’ Presentation Wizard and Screen Saver Construction Set technologies, these functions use updated run-times to work faster and be smaller. They maintain compatibility with the latest releases of the foregoing applications, too, so you can open them in a more extensive development environment and build on them even further.

As with earlier major version upgrades, if you have registered or upgraded a registration for Graphic Workshop Professional 3 within one year prior to the release of Graphic Workshop Professional 4, we’ll send you a free upgrade registration for Graphic Workshop Professional 4. That’s “free” as in “no money down, no interest or carrying charges and no payments from now until the end of time.”

The pricing for Graphic Workshop Professional 4 hasn’t been finalized at this time – note that if you upgrade your Graphic Workshop Professional 3 registration now and the upgrade cost for Graphic Workshop Professional 4 increases, you’ll have pocketed the difference… assuming you still keep anything like money in your pockets.

To upgrade, please visit our upgrade ordering page or call our toll-free order desk at 1-800-263-1138.

As always, we encourage you to get in touch with us if you have any suggestions for Graphic Workshop Professional 4.

If you haven’t checked them out yet, be sure to visit the Graphic Workshop Professional 4 Sneak Peak and the Graphic Workshop Professional 4 Sneak Peak #2: It’s There postings for more about what’s coming in the next release of the known universe’s most popular image management software.