Description:
Kai's Photo Soap 2 is a new genre of graphics application, designed to meet the needs of those in the process of building a library of digital images. With the proliferation of digital photo cameras comes the ability to shoot pictures indiscriminately, so the release of this product couldn't come at a better time. For the digital film buff, there's the initial investment in the camera, but the pictures are free. As long as you have space on your computer's hard drive, you can save an almost unlimited number of photos. The inherent problem with this kind of freedom is the sheer volume of pictures that can quickly accumulate, the issue that Photo Soap addresses. Photo Soap is several tools combined: a catalog builder, a retoucher, a compositing application, and an album maker. With the organizing tools, one can sort and view a collection of photos by date, size, content, name, and color. A favorite feature is the "lightbox," which lets you view your photos as if they are traditional mounted slides on a light box. The retouching tools are basic but useful, and the compositing and layering abilities are fun for building collages. The album maker is designed to make your photos into digital photo albums that you can share with others. For those without a computer who want to view your albums, Photo Soap can print album pages with headers, text, and captions. Like all of Kai's tools, Photo Soap has a nonstandard interface, and if you're used to a conventional Mac or Windows toolbar, icon set, window, or menu system, this interface is a little hard to get used to. The interface is well planned though, and whatever the quick reference card doesn't cover can be found in the online manual. Photo Soap is a handy tool, and if your hard drive is quickly filling up with folders full of JPG images from that handy digital camera, Soap is a great companion to help get organized. --Mike Caputo
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