[Developer]

Always Let the Cover Expert Do the Design


Features:

Dynamically creating complex scenes consisting of several objects (Box CD, DVD DVD Box etc.)
A powerful graphics engine supporting the reflection and half-transparency effects in real time
Rotating, moving and resizing each object in the scene in real time
Image formats for textures: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, ICO, TIFF, TGA, PCX, WBMP, WMF, EMF, J2K, JP2, JBG, J2C, JPC, PGX, PNM, PGM, PPM, RAS
Saving the final image in the formats: PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, TGA, JP2, JPC, RAS, PNM
Dynamic lights, shadows and the reflection of the whole scene in real time


Download Cover Expert
Request a review


Advertisements have become a part of our lives, and everywhere we go, we are bound to find one item or another promoting a product - no matter if we’re talking about useful things, like pencils, notebooks, umbrellas, cups etc., or just about regular flyers announcing the release of a new piece from a certain brand. Everything around us seems to be personalized so as to draw our attention to various events or products.

This being said, have you ever had the curiosity of trying to create an ad yourself? It's easier said than done. For instance, let’s assume your boss wants you to quickly come up with a presentation for an upcoming product - nothing too glamorous or fancy, simply something to get the message through and attract customers. However, when your goal is promoting your business on a large scale, you will need to use the appropriate "weaponry" to create a professional-looking display, which, obviously involves more than just using a pair of scissors and glue to stick your logo on a box. Well, one of the alternatives is named Cover Expert. Don’t be scared away by the "Expert" part of the name, this software can be easily used by anyone who knows how to handle a mouse and has a product that needs promoting.
Cover Expert comes with an intuitive interface organized under eight tabs that will guide you, and will help you adjust most of the aspects necessary for the creation of an appealing output. First of all, you will be required to select, from the 44 templates available, the one that best fits your needs – however, if you are not perfectly satisfied with none of them, you can easily create a template from scratch, by adding the items you need one by one.

The next step is to configure each of the objects according to your preferences: select the texture (or, to be more precise, the image displayed on each of the sides), define the position inside the presentation, then adjust the rotation level and the size.

Once this is over with, Cover Expert will enable you to change the camera settings – in other words, it will allow you to act as a movie director that gets to specify exactly the camera angle and the position that will best emphasize the subject. If you can’t get it right the first time, keep experimenting, and use the real-time preview until you get the best result.

Nonetheless, it is not all a matter of camera position, but also of lights and shadows. It is a well-known fact that selecting the wrong lighting for a scene can ruin an entire show, so take your time to play around and modify the settings for each of the two light sources. Then, modify the shadows until your product displays precisely the amount of light and darkness that will intrigue and catch the attention of anyone who sees it for the first time.

To make sure nobody can resist the design of your project, Cover Expert offers you a secret tool: the reflection level. You can easily create a realistic and natural look by specifying the length and opacity for the reflection, so that whoever sees it will believe they are looking at a real object, and not just the image of a product.

The final stage is choosing the output format of your project - since Cover Expert offers numerous graphic formats, you will surely be able to find the one that best suits your needs. In addition, you get to choose the width and the height of the image, so all that’s left to do is to set the filename, and then to publish it on your website or on a brochure. Success will be knocking at your door before you know it.

The Good

You will have the possibility to change the appearance of Cover Expert by applying one of the 10 available skins, so that you can match it with the style of your PC. Also, the numerous output file formats can only come to make you happy that, finally, a software producer thought of introducing more than the usual BMP, JPEG or PNG formats inside a graphic-related application.

The Bad

Given that most of nowadays’ software come with numerous language packs and localizations, it is a shame that Cover Expert offers only four languages to use for its interface: English, French, German and Russian.

Moreover, you won’t have the option of choosing a color for the lights or the shadows used in your projects, thus partly missing out on the effects that could have been created.

Also, let's not forget that you will need to pay 39 USD to become the rightful owner of Cover Expert, and to remove all the watermarks stamped on your projects. The price is quite high if compared with the features it comes with.


The Truth

To put it plainly, Cover Expert will help you personalize and "beautify" the presentations of your products, eliminating the need for you to spend endless hours trying to come up with the perfect balance between shadows, position and objects within your presentation. In the end, it’s up to you to decide how you want to improve your business and attract more customers - all we can do is to warmly advise you to evaluate Cover Expert for 90 days (a trial period longer than with most apps), and see if it’s really worth spending 39 dollars.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: