The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Adobe Photoshop Album Tony Bajoras |
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Do you have folders full of image files named untitled 1, untitled
2,scanned image 3 etc and have no idea what they contain? Do you spend more
time trying to find a photo amongst the myriad of folders on your hard
drive, than actually looking at the photo? Then Adobe Photoshop Album can
provide an easy way to enable you to sort, organise, view and share your
photos.
Organise
Photoshop Album also incorporates disc-burning software so that a DVD or
Video CD can be burnt that enables you to show your photos on a TV or on a
computer if fitted with a compatible player. This software also enables you
to back up or archive your photos onto a CD.
Adobe Photoshop Album provides six main features to aid the management of
your image files. These comprise:
Each of these tasks can be accessed from either a shortcut toolbar or from
a Quick Guide window.
Main Features
Get Photos
Photos are initially imported into the program by the use of the Get Photos
tab. Photoshop Album can be configured to search entire hard drives or just
specific folders for all image files. When a photo is located in a hard
drive folder and is imported into Photoshop Album, the program creates a
link to the photo and leaves the photo file in its original location. This
minimises the need for extra disk space. Photos can also be imported from
other sources including digital cameras, card readers, scanners and CDs.
Photoshop Album refers to all image files as photos and appears to
recognise most of the common file types including BMP, JPG, TIF, GIF, PNG
and Adobe files however I found that it did not recognise ArcSoft
PhotoStudio's PSF files.
Figure 1. Quick Guide window.
Figure 2. The Picture Package printing option.
The imported photos are displayed as thumbnails in the Photoshop Album work
area in a small, medium or large format as desired. A timeline is also
created using the dates when the photos were taken. The date information is
retrieved from the EXIF data stored in the picture file by your digital
camera. If no date information is available, the date when the file was
created on the hard drive is used.
The imported photos are then organised by the attachment of one or more
descriptive tags. These tags are easily created and attached to appropriate
photos by simply dragging them from the Tags pane onto the thumbnail. There
are several master categories of tags included in the program comprising of
People, Places, Events and Other as well as the subcategories Family and
Friends within People. These categories and subcategories can be easily
expanded upon as desired.
Find Photo
Photos are found by the use of the time line or by the use of the tags. By
selecting a date or a date range on the time line, all of the photos
created within the selection range are displayed.
Photos can also be retrieved by clicking on a tag or on multiple tags in
the Tag pane. Only the photos that have all of the selected tags associated
with them will be displayed.
Traditionally, photo files are given an appropriate descriptive name for
the ease of identification and may be stored in separate folders containing
similar photos. It can be difficult to retrieve photos, for example, of a
specific person, from separate folders. The advantage of the tags in
Photoshop Album is that after tagging, one click on the Family Tag can
display your entire collection of family photos. Similarly by choosing 2001
in the time line and clicking on the Sydney Tag and on the Marc Tag, all of
the pictures that you took of your son Marc during your holiday to Sydney
in the year 2001 are displayed. Cross-referencing is made simple with tags
and you can produce custom albums instantly.
Fix Photo
The software also enables the manipulation of images to fix some common
problems. The overall colour, contrast and brightness of the image can be
adjusted. Photos can also be cropped and the red eye effect removed. A
dialog box is provided that shows the Before and After view of any changes
made and there is an Undo and Redo function. The program is compatible with
Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements if more advanced editing is required.
Photo Creations
This task enables the creation of photo albums, slide shows, greeting
cards, eCards and calendars using selected photos. A wave file can be
attached to a slideshow so that a pre-recorded commentary or suitable music
can be played while the slideshow is running.
Share Photos
Photos can be distributed by e-mail as a PDF format slideshow or as JPEG
attachments. This task generates an e-mail message, enables the selection
of photos and the amount of compression desired and opens up an address
dialog box. A new address book, however, needs to be generated for this
program, as the recipients' addresses cannot be imported from an existing
Microsoft or Netscape address book.
Figure 3. The Photoshop Album work area.
The program provides a number of options for printing the photos.
Individual prints, thumbnails of selected photos in a Contact Sheet or
photos in a variety of sizes in a Picture Package can be printed. In each
case the software optimises the layout and positioning of the selected
photos and displays a preview of the layout before printing.
Verdict
Photoshop Album is an easy program to use and with its wide range of
available tasks provides a very effective way of managing your image files.
The use of multiple tags allows the easy retrieval of all relevant photos
from all of your sources. There is no more need to remember in which folder
a series of photos are stored, as all of the photos are readily available
from within the program. As a bonus, the software can also handle video
clips and audio files in a similar fashion.
Cost
Adobe Photoshop Album is available for around $99 including GST from most
good software outlets.
System Requirements
Pentium III equivalent or higher.
Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP.
128 MB RAM ( 256 MB recommended ).
150 MB available hard-disk space.
Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5 or 6.0.
Colour monitor with 256-colour video card.
800 x 600 resolution.
CD-ROM drive.
Reprinted from the June 2003 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
