Paint Shop Pro Photo Album Five

Jasc's Paint Shop Photo Album Five

For pros and novices, there is enough here to make this a real asset to anyone who works with digital images. Well worth the time and trouble of investing in should you use photos in your work or need to organize fast. Jasc has made one of the best ones out there. Plus, it integrates nicely with the new and even more recently improved Jasc Paint Shop Pro version Nine!

Friday, October 01, 2004

Paint Shop Photo Album Five

Deluxe Edition

Requirements:

1. Pentium II 300 MHz
2. Windows 98  SE, 2000, Me, Xp
3. 128 MB of Ram
4. 135 MB of hard drive space

 By: Kurt von Behrmann

 www.jasc.com

 On the high end of  the digital image editing front, names like Adobe and Photoshop are rulers.  However, when it comes to cataloguing, archiving or just organizing your digital images, one has to turn to software designed to keep order tight and chaos at a minimum.  Certainly, high end editing programs are great to have and use, but equally important are programs that can allow easy access to multiple images. 

 After having worked with image files for even a brief time, it becomes rather obvious rather fast, that software organization becomes a real necessity.  This is where Paint Shop Photo Album Five comes into place.

From the same makers of Paint Shop Pro, a low priced but amazingly detailed image editing program, Jasc has scored another high mark with version Five of Paint Shop Photo Album. 

 Offering up an improved user interface, Jasc has turned an already solid program into an even easier one to use.  Superficially, the program is designed with the idea of making the act of downloading, sending and organizing pictures easier for new digital photo enthusiasts.  On the surface, that is true, but do not let that mislead you into thinking this is an underpowered performer.

 In sharp contrast to programs designed for the novice, Jasc has wisely made the program accessible without making it infantile. Much like its sibling Paint Shop Pro, the concept is towards power, functionality and ease of use.  When viewed from that angle, Jasc has taken much from its own development over the years in making a program that is suitable for beginners and yet powerful enough for more demanding uses.

 For photo enthusiasts who want to download without going through clicks and searches, this is about as easy as it gets.  Should you be fortunate to have a PC with a card reader built in, or have a card reading device, just drop the card into your system, select Paint Shop Pro Photo Album Five and instantly, your images are brought up ready to download.  This is literally one step downloading, or as close to it as one gets.

 If things were easy in version four, version Five takes work flow to a new level. To aid in organizing your images, there are some rudimentary image editing tools within the program. Should you require something more sophisticated, the application, as to be expected, integrates seamlessly with Paint Shop Pro. Naturally, you can go to any other photo editing program, but it is nice to know that it does allow easy access to the primary image editor in the Jasc product line Paint Shop Pro.

 Things do not end with downloading pictures. This program allows you to share your images via email, camera phones, scrapbooks, video CD’s and of course printed pictures. This coupled with some rather interesting effects and image editing tools could mean for basic uses you could remain within the application without the need to exit.

 More than just allowing you to download your pictures, the program offers back up, search features to locate missing files and a slew of other options to create video files using your stills, as well as the ability to annotate them.  Entire multi media creations can be created within the program offering a host of options for storing and sharing your images.

Summation

 As the market for photo organizers fills with programs and applications, Jasc continues to bring to the table programs that are powerful, yet easy to use.  Unlike the sometimes crippled software that ships with most digital cameras, Paint Shop Photo Album is the perfect software tool for the user just getting his or her feet wet.

 For pros that want to get up and running fast, the search tools, cataloging tools, viewer and many other built in features makes this an equally viable application for those with more demanding needs.

 As a program that suites the novice and the pro, Jasc has produced yet another strong contender in the hotly contest race for the best photo organizer on the market.