Description:
Adobe Photoshop Album is an exceptionally user-friendly compilation of practical applications for owners of digital cameras. Though it offers few advanced features, the package combines a variety of organizational and basic photo editing and sharing utilities within one convenient interface, and is thusly particularly valuable for digital photography newbies and anyone who is unsure how to handle their pics after they've snapped them. Photoshop Album is divided into six distinct regions, all of which are accessed via a single screen. The first, appropriately entitled Get Photos, automatically gathers and sorts images from sources such as cameras or card readers, scanners, or existing folders you may already have stored inside your computer. It is important to note that the program doesn't actually move files already on your hard drive; rather it simply provides an easier way to catalog them. The second section, Organize, groups and categorizes photos by date or by customizable subject matters, allowing you to quickly "tag" thumbnails of your shots in much the same way you'd place ID tags on luggage. Unique to Photoshop Album is its "timeline" feature--a scrollable bar graph located at the top of the screen that visually displays the number of photos from a given month or folder. The program's Fix Photo tool may be disappointing to Adobe veterans in that it is no more sophisticated than most shareware or beginner editing utilities. Indeed, you must use Adobe's pricier Photoshop Elements or a competing product if you want to perform manipulations beyond basic cropping, redeye correction, or brightness, contrast and color adjustments. The impressive "Creation," conversely, generates a number of exciting photo presentations, including audio-enhanced slideshows and video CDs and printable albums, calendars and greetings cards. The program even warns you if your image quality, size or orientation isn't ideal for printing. Photoshop Album also facilitates email and Internet photo sharing of both individual photos and entire slideshows, although Adobe doesn't maintain its own sharing site and therefore forces you to belong to a third-party site if you want to publish on the Web. --Gord Goble
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