NEW VERSIONS of Live Picture and xRes (both from new owners) are catching up to Adobe Photoshop.
Live Picture 2.5.
Formerly published in the U.S. by MetaTools, Live Picture is now under the control of its eponymous developer. Although Live Picture remains an RGB editing program, version 2.5's support for ColorSync 2.0 helps eliminate unpleasant color-output surprises.
Thanks to Live Picture's Photoshop-plug-in support, users can access a range of special effects without turning to Photoshop. And you can now import EPS files into a Live Picture composition and export a composition in EPS format. It even requires less RAM than before -- 18 MB, compared to 24 MB. $999. 408-464-4200.
Macromedia xRes 2.0.
Macromedia bought xRes 1.2 from Fauve Software and will deliver version 2.0 in the first quarter of 1996. The new direct-editing mode allows you to work on pixels just as you would in Photoshop.
xRes 2.0 also takes on the look and feel of Photoshop, with dockable palettes that have tabs for various features. There's also a tool bar that lets you access common functions such as copy, paste, and print. The expanded set of paint tools includes brushes for selectively adding noise and dodging or burning an image. $699. 415-252-2000.
