Collage Machine
© 2006 Protozone, Inc.
If you've ever wanted to make your own "I SPY" puzzle, here's the software for the job. This creativity experience lets you drag and drop hundreds (we counted 441) of visual elements onto a screen, using a set of menus that includes shapes, letters (for spelling words) or objects. You can also import your own graphic elements, that can be saved. Once selected, each element can be moved around, faded, resized, or layered. In addition, you can draw on items, or save and print your creations for other projects such as framing or creating note cards. Our testers found the software to be easy-to-use, noting that it could be useful for adding some spice to a school assignment or just to be creative with personal pictures. You can place pictures onto a background and move them around, changing their size, or even draw pictures using a pallet of colors and a pen. The end results can be animated with the click of a button. There are some drawbacks, however. Finding saved work is tricky, and it is not clear if you can export work to common formats on the hard drive. It is also possible to accidentally erase your work. All in all, this creativity program is worth a second look despite some limitations. We tried both the Windows and the Mac versions, with no problems.
$25, Windows XP, Mac OSX and OS9
Teaches: creativity, spatial relations, movies, photography
CTR Rating: 85%