| Page (2) of 2 - 06/20/05 |
 email article |
 print
page |
|
You can organize your images easily in this fashion if you wish. From the thumbnail view, a single click of the image will bring that image into the main viewing window. From here you can perform such functions as Auto fix, Red eye, Crop, Edit, and the like.
 |
| Get Photos. |
Get Photos
The Get Photos Button is supposed to enable you to get photos from a digital camera, folder on a hard disk or via CD-ROM. However, with a Canon Digital Rebel, the software was able to see the images (see image above) when the camera was connected to the USB port of the computer, but the software wouldn't download the images from the card, stating that the camera wasn't turned on, when clearly it was. It's a minor annoyance, but if the software can see the images on the memory card in the camera, it should be able to download them. The workaround was to let Windows XP find the images and import them into Photo Finale. Retrieving photos from any other source, such as a CD or other folder posed no such issues. You might not have such luck with older Windows operating systems though. When you get photos from a CD disc, Photo Finale creates a folder of the images and gives it a date, in this case 6-20-2005, the date in which the photos were cataloged in Photo Finale. In fact, all the image folders that Photo Finale catalogs can be found in the Folders tab. In the image below, you can see all the photos with the most recent folder highlighted in the image below.
 |
| The folders tab to the left details all the image folders imported into PhotoFinale. |
Fix
Photo Finale offers some tools that enable you to perform basic adjustments to images. You can AutoFix the image, which enables the software to make the adjustments for you, or you can choose to fix each of the components of an image yourself. The included tools are Brightness, Temperature, Red, Green, Blue, Contrast, Saturation, Sharphness, and Hue. In the fix window, you have two windows showing the original image and the preview image as well as the adjustment sliders.
 |
| The edit window. |
As with most image editors, when you make an adjustment to an image, the preview window will detail in real time how that adjustment affects the image. If you don't want to keep the change, you can click on the square below the adjustment tab, or if you made several adjustments, you can reset the entire adjustment palette. When you click OK, Photo Finale will render the changes. There is also a red eye removal tool as well as Crop tool, text tool for adding text to an image, and an Art tool, which opens a collection of clip art that you can add to your images.
 |
| You can add art such as this star to your images |
Order and Share
The Order feature enables you to order prints and other gifts from your digital photos. This requires you to become a member. You can share your images online, and you can order prints ranging from 4x6 to 8x10 in Glossy or matte finish. You can also order greeting cards with images and mugs and T-Shirts emblazoned with images on them as well. The Order wizard walks you through the entire process. This is a handy feature for those who want high quality photo prints but don't have a printer that can output high quality, or who wish to send 8x10 images immediately to friends and family. View CD enables you to view the images that are on a CD before you import them into Photo Finale. You can also order prints here as well. Make CD/DVD gives you the capability within the software to backup your photos to CD or DVD. If there isn't enough space to save the collection to CD/DVD, the software will tell you to remove images. When you remove enough, the software will let you know and you can proceed to backup the images to disc. Other features to Photo Finale include an email tool which enables you to email your finished images directly from within Photo Finale, and a slideshow tool which enables you to create slideshows for viewing on the host computer.
System Requirements
System requirements are a 700MHz Pentium class processor running Windows 98 or later, 256MB RAM, 200MB free hard disk space, 800 x600 color display, and Internet access for accessing Web features. Photo Finale supports JPG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIF, BMP, RAW, PSP, and Photoshop file formats. An Amd Athon XP 3000+ system with 1GB RAM running Windows XP Professional was used for this review. The software ran just fine with this setup.
Conclusion
Photo Finale is a very inexpensive image management tool with some very basic image editing features. The draw with this application is its organizational capabilities as well as its online printing and sharing tools. For those who need just basic image editing functionality, this application offers it. It offers some good file saving capabilites as well as a decent compression tool when saving out for Web use or mobile media use. It does have a few quirks, such as the ability to read from images on a Canon Digital Rebel but the inability to download those images into the application. This could be an irritant specific to the camera, though. It would be nice to create a slideshow within the application and save that slideshow out to CD. The technology is there to burn a CD of images, but I didn't see the capability to create a ready to run slideshow from disc, and most image management/editing tools at this price point offer this capability. Despite these annoyances, it is a good start for those who want to get into image editing, want an application that will take you directly to an Internet print service, or if you just want to have a quick tool to organize and view your images. For more information, visit www.photofinale.com
John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
Related Sites: Digital Producer , Audio Video Producer , Corporate Media News , Digital Media Designer , Oceania , CEN - Consumer Electronics Net , CEN - Photography , CEN - HomeOffice
Related Newsletter: DMN Newsletter , CMN Newsletter , Pixels Newsletter , Digital Media Net , DMNForums , CEN - Gadgets Newsletter , Review Seeker
