Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

Description
Lightbox is an image browser with a difference: it attaches itself to any selected application
so that users have easy access to all their image folders. For example, if you attach it to Word,
its thumbnail viewer and file browser become physically attached to the bottom of the Word
window until you click Remove in the Lightbox Manager window. It works with all popular
applications including Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign, and
Fireworks; Macromedia FreeHand; CorelDRAW, and Paint Shop Pro; and so on.
Aimed at graphic designers, Web designers, and digital photographers, Lightbox has full
drag-and-drop support, enabling users to select and place images immediately into their
applications. Other features include a color picker, animated thumbnails, favorites, history,
user-defined thumbnail sizes, and an “instant viewer” that displays a large version of the
image on double-clicking.
Comments
An ingenious concept, Lightbox stands or falls according to whether individual applications
have a need for it. Most have their own browsing facilities—even MS Works
Word has Insert>Picture>From File—which brings up an image browser. When
Lightbox gets better editing features, such as resizing and cropping, it will become much
more useful. However, its current support for many different file formats is noteworthy,
as is its ability to display both Exif and IPTC metadata.
Version: Lightbox 3.0 (2008)
OS: Windows 2000, XP, and Vista
RAM: 256MB
Supported file formats: 150 file formats including all popular image, digital camera, Web, video,
audio, and document files, including 50 RAW formats
Price level: Approx. $30
Address: Conceiva Pty. Ltd., Monash Business Park, 21 Business Park Drive, Notting Hill 3168,
Victoria, Australia
www.conceiva.com
Photo Mechanic
Chapter 2 ■ Image Viewers 19
Vendor: Camera Bits
Purpose: Image browser for professional photographers with good IPTC support
Description
An image browser aimed at professional photographers, Photo Mechanic from Camera
Bits provides exceptional control for applying “IPTC stationery” (a template containing
details of city, state, photographer’s name, copyright, and so on) and XMP metadata. It
is also extremely fast, with a multi-threaded architecture to keep itself a few steps ahead