Hair Pro v5.05

After reading the lengthy Hair Pro v5.05 instruction help file, I realized I would probably need a picture of myself so I may see my lovely face under a variety of different pixellated hairdos. I hunted around my harddrive but couldn't find any pictures of myself that didn't show me in an embarrassing position with an inflatable human being or something equally awful. I mean, I can't really use a photo like this:

Click for a bigger picture, although I wouldn't recommend it.

Look at that! The picture size is small, I'm not directly facing the camera, and I've got my hand out towards the camera as if to say, "my hand is out towards the camera." That's not Virtual Hair material, folks. Fortunately I eventually found a photo on another computer which seemed to fit the bill:

Smile! You're on Idiot TV!

Yup, I found a copy of the, "Hi, my name is Rich 'Lowtax' Kyanka and I'll be running for Senator" picture I had hidden away in a folder named "Glamour Shots". I guess it was probably for the better that it was hidden. Regardless, I decided to use this pic for my "Virtual Hair" makeover, something I know I will regret until the day I die (sometime next week). I loaded this photo into Hair Pro v5.05's friendly user interface (it has a button with a little file opening on it) and started up my "Virtual Makeover".

The first thing I was immediately impressed with was the menu bar. It is broken up into to parts which I call the "buttons that don't work right" and the "buttons that work right but probably shouldn't."

Here are the "buttons that don't work right." Pressing any of them results in an unexpected outcome ranging from either your picture becoming really screwed up or the entire program crashing. Say what you will about non-virtual makeovers, but at least I've never seen a hair stylist suddenly turn into a blue error box and vanish. At least not when sober.

I have to admit, the main buttons work right for the most part. I never had any problem opening or saving images. However, the image editing tools are simply horrendous. If you change the color of something, then go to resize it, the image will revert back to its previous color. The actual editing program is about as useful as a stripped down version of Microsoft Paintbrush, only without the stability and functionality. Maybe this is only in the trial and the full version includes editing tools which work properly. I'm still not going to buy it. Probably.