Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

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The Digital Photographer's Software Guide
From among the larger corporations, Serif’s AlbumPlus is one of the easiest packages
to use, but you may need one of the vendor’s other programs for editing. From the
biggest company of all, there is Kodak EasyShare, part of an extensive system composed
of camera, dock, online gallery, and print service.
It is logical to combine album creation software with online services, and the Kodak
offering is comprehensive. It may be too consumer-oriented for some tastes, but a good
level of print quality is always maintained. An alternative for those who simply want a
convenient online presence is SendPhotos, a two-in-one software/service solution that
comes with free Web space. With the vendor’s ongoing development, you can load pictures
direct from your mobile phone as well as from your PC.
Album Creator
Vendor: FirmTools
Purpose: Generates professional-looking Flash and HTML image galleries
Description
Album Creator lets you create online albums in Flash or HTML, using specially
designed templates to give the pages a professional look. It gives you the flexibility to
customize the templates, plus the option of designing your own.
Additional, themed templates are available for download, several new ones being released
every month. For example, “Dotted Frames” has a dark gray color scheme and a new
font (Candara), and is ideal for showing images to their best advantage. Another, “Paper
Album,” has a page-turning, corner-dragging feature with the option of setting your
own texture image for the pages or the album cover.
As well as album creation, the software has editing tools to enhance photos, remove redeye,
adjust colors, and apply watermarks. It has support for Exif and IPTC metadata
and includes FTP facilities for uploading to a Website.
Album Creator comes in three editions: Lite, Basic, and Pro.
Comments
Well presented and carefully explained, Album Creator has the look and feel of a mainstream
product, despite its relatively low cost. Since it was launched in 2003, its templates
have become increasingly well designed, some of the latest being outstanding. If
you prefer to place albums on your own Website rather use Flickr or another online
service, Album Creator is an effective tool that gives you plenty of creative freedom. The
developers are enthusiastic users of digital cameras—and they have put their experience
to good use in this product.