New Microsoft program suite coming our way- Expression

[usedHONDA]

Expression Blend is a tool to produce user experiences for the Windows Presentation Framework. It is targeted primarily at designers, not developers.

The Expression Studio is a comprehensive set of tools built by and for creative professionals for the purpose of augmenting the creative process and helping integrate designers and developers into a smooth and efficient workflow. Expression Studio comprises Expression Web for creating standards-based Web sites; Expression Blend for designing rich interactive experiences for Windows®; Expression Design for the design of visual elements for Web and Windows experiences and Expression Media, which provides digital asset management and unifies team workflow across the suite. Expression Web is shipping now, and the full Expression Studio is planned for delivery in the second quarter of 2007.

I'm going to download it and

[FireFly]

Hmm... I didn't really read it because they said 'Microsoft' X 50 and 'Expression' X 37.5

I'm guessing this will help out Paint.NET and or the .NET framework?

[usedHONDA]

I'm opening Expression Design now....

My first time opening it:

EDIT: Another screenshot:

It look cool (emphasis on looks). I think it's dark for good reason (other than it looks cool)- easy on the eyes and not distracting. From what I think I read, this is supposed to do rasters and vectors. More coming soon...

SECOND EDIT:

-First Impressions-

I certainly looks the part with a sleek look and nice effects. It loads pretty fast (about the time for PDN to start up). But resining a window really slows it down. The computer comes to a complete hault for 3 seconds if you try to adjust the height by 100 pixels. The menus also have a delay in its highlighting- it takes an extra half a second after you roll your cursor on it for the "File" menu to turn to a lighter shade of grey.

Now here's my artistic experience:

Meh.

I am sorry to say that this is only a vector editor (and a png export on the side). On the bright side, it's an easy to learn the interface. Unfortunately, the reason is because I've worked with lots of editors before and there aren't many tools to chose from. After a while you realize that the tool icons are cheap. They were originally pixelated, but were blurred to (supposedly) make it look better.

My verdict:

Inkscape is a whole lot better (and free).

I think I'll go and see how bad Expression Blend is now...

[The_Lionhearted]

And he posts the key too...

[tunedude]

And he posts the key too...

If you would have gone to the page, you would have seen that it doesn't exactly matter...

http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/expression-design/free-trial.mspx

[MadJik]

They've surely used Pdn and kaleidoscope plugin for this:

http://www.microsoft.com/design/work/Detail.aspx?key=expression 8)

[tunedude]

I am sorry to say that this is only a vector editor (and a png export on the side).

I think I'll go and see how bad Expression Blend is now...

You seem to forget that the whole raison d'être for particularly Blend, and to some extent Design is to create User Interfaces for WPF (and probably Silverlight (http://microsoft.com/silverlight) applications.