Microsoft Picture It incompatability with Windows 7 and alternatives for .mix files.

I am pleased to see the discussion taking a more rational turn in the posts of Leonicke and Marianne. I don't really disagree with what they say and hope that Microsoft will do what they want - though have we any reason to think that anybody from Microsoft reads these posts? Perhaps Facebook will be better. 

I should perhaps comment on the claim that PI would have done a better job than I did in my book cover on the Amazon site. I don't dispute this. However, that was done on Paint.net in my early days of using it. I could probably do better now - and almost certainly if I used Photoshop Elements. Also, you can probably do a good job in PI if you have a lot of experience using it. You might not do as well when using a different program with less experience for comparison purposes. So some things might be done as well In Elements - and some possibly better. However, I make no claims. If you can't get PI, of course, then other programs could be at least the next best thing.

A thought about compatibility. When I tried to get PI on W10 through altered compatibility settings, my efforts ended when it said I didn't have a licence agreement. So perhaps failure was due to limitations on allowed use for the version supplied with my XP package many years ago. However, it did work for me on Vista. 

Another contribution for the records - I managed to get PI to install and work on W7 by installing it on a virtual desktop. However, the resulting images then wouldn't open on the normal W7 desktop, so I couldn't use them there. 

John Presland

15The trick I learned is that when you reinstall Windows 7, the first thing you do is prevent any updates. The first thing I do if I have to reinstall Win7 is stop updates.

I'm sure there are people who wouldn't use it without all those updates, but it's the updates that make it useless to me, because it's something among them that stops PictureIt and a couple of other programs from working.

I don't quite know what you mean by not using it for collages, because what you describe as "working with pictures and part of pictures, combining them, blending, merging, and creating little pieces of art " is substantially what I describe as a collage.

I agree that there are a hundred dozen and 12 way to creates a layout featuring a bunch of photos. Things that look like scrapbook pages, I mean. But nothing I have ever tried has created transparencies and blended edges the way PictureIt does.

Photo Elements, for instance, will create a transparent overlay, and will feather edges -- but if you need to soften and bled an edge after the cut-out has been added to the collage, you have to do it by hand, and all you can really do is either blur the edge or make it slightly more transparent with the eraser. In PictureIt, you can feather an edge out for 50 pixels or more so it dissolves into the background as if you had airbrushed it.

For what I do -- which is tabloid size memorial collages that might feature anywhere from a dozen to a hundred images, all cut out and blended into a background, there simply is no other program that works. You can do edges and transparencies in Photo Shop Pro, but the result does not look as good. It's not as smooth, and you'll be able to see the transitions rather than losing them in the feathered edge.

I would argue that PictureIt is the best, most productive software Microsoft ever made, and they abandoned it in favor of silly, useless photo organizers.  If they had simply stopped making PowerPoint or Word, and the version still in use wouldn't work under Win7 and Win10, there would be **** to pay from the end users who count on it.

Dear John,

I think for those who haven't used Picture It in the way we did, ( we / as in users that are desperately trying to keep it working and to persuade Microsoft to update it)

it's not at all clear which features we like so much about it.

Picture It is definitely the most user friendly photo editing software that still allows you to make wonderful creations without any great effort. Except your own creativity.

It's not being missed for making collages, you can do that even on your phone these days.

It's not being used to throw in all kinds of filters, or photoshop to make you look better.

It's provides a creative way of working with pictures and part of pictures, combining them, blending, merging, and creating little pieces of art for just creative normal people... Not even professionals.

You have the possibility to always use your cut outs over and over again, transform them, etc.

Even now I still use elements from like 7 or 8 years ago.

I couldn't use it for it wasn't compatible with windows 8, and it hadn't been with windows 7 on my previous computer.

Can't even begin to tell you how much I missed this software!

Tried all kinds of programs and just didn't work for me, much to my own sadness, believe me.

Then we reinstalled w7 on our new computer because also my pinnacle studio didn't work with 8 anymore.

And one night, I just thought, let me try and install Picture It in this new 'old' setting, it might work, you never know.

So I set there, waiting for the disk to install, and much to my own surprise, it did.

I walked around the room like a crazy person, I was so happy, couldn't believe it!

Didn't touch it anymore that night, was so afraid to get disappointed again.

Next day, started up Picture It literally with my fingers crossed and it worked! And it still does!

And WOW, that brought back a lot of creativity in my life again.

So, that's the day I started a Facebook page, as well as a website (renewed today),

hoping we will gain enough members on the page to make a clear plead to Microsoft:

bring back Picture It, we're more then willing to pay for it,

or, if they really don't want to do anything with it anymore,

give it up for open source editing.

It's not all that difficult you know.

In fact, I happen to know somebody very high up at Microsoft and he said, before I started this,

it ain't gonna happen, the're not gonna bring it back out there. But you might try to persuade them to release it for open source editing.

To give you a quick impression of what I mean by creating with Picture It,

today I updated the website and posted some of my Christmas Cards.

The time spend on them is to be searched in the creativity, the design, the layout,

but not in the technical features for those are done in a split second, really.

That's what we mean by creative collages and designs.

I saw your book, I think you could have blended and merged it in a much smoother way with Picture It!

Please check out the website and see for yourself.

http://picture-it.webnode.nl/

Best regards,

Leonieke

Picture It

Thanks. It's kind of you to write with suggestions. I think, however, that you must be replying to an old post. I don't have problems now. I use Photoshop Elements for everything and don't really need anything else. It sounds as though your programs all have to be paid for. My Photoshop Elements came free when I bought a slide scanner. There are also some very good free programs, of which the best I've found is Paint.net, much more versatile than Microsoft's Paint. 

Thanks again. It's always worthwhile relating your successful experiences. They could always be helpful to someone. 

John Presland