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 As graphics programs grow more sophisticated, so they usually become trickier to use, a mess of toolbars and floating palettes cutting your workspace down to size. Fortunately Deneba's Canvas 8 takes a different approach. Its functions are neatly arranged on a row of tabs immediately below the toolbar, easy to access but also leaving your page completely uncluttered.
This arrangement helps you get to grips with Canvas very quickly, which is quite some achievement when you realise exactly how many features it has. Like the comprehensive set of vector drawing tools, for instance. Along with the usual basic lines and geometric shapes comes a powerful set of path tools, including Curve, Polygon, Freehand and Auto Curve. They can all be edited in full with the Reshape or Push tools, or you can choose a particular area to tweak.
Once you've finished creating a vector object, the Extrude tool can convert it into a 3D object. This may then be precisely sized, or rotated in 3D space until you get the effect you need. Although not exactly full-scale 3D modelling, it's far more power than you'd expect from a vector drawing program.
But then Canvas isn't just about vector drawing. Open a digital photo and it's just as happy to let you resize or rotate it, adjust colours, brightness and contrast, apply filters, and more. You can even add vector objects to the picture, then process them with bitmap tools, perhaps blurring the object, changing its contrast and running an emboss filter. And with further support for desktop publishing, web graphics and animation, and export formats including PDF and Flash (SWF), Canvas 8 really does offer something for everyone.
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