Tuesday, March 2, 2004
PC Magazine: "Digital Photography for Everyone: Manage, Share, Print"
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 12:00 PM
"If you're ready to buy a digital camera, you probably can't wait to enjoy the convenience of having your photos at your fingertips, share pictures with friends and family, and cover the walls of your house with your masterpieces printed off a photo-quality ink jet printer. But if you've owned a digital camera for a while, you know the reality of the situation: Windows' built-in tools for managing images are underpowered; sharing photos by traditional means such as e-mail is cumbersome, and printing off your ink jet printer means constantly buying pricey little ink cartridges.
Fortunately, when the tech world has a problem, innovators turn up everywhere you look, from the familiar Adobe and Apple to newer kids on the block such as modgods and Snapfish. New image management applications let you sift quickly through thousands of images; photo-sharing sites and tools make setting up Web galleries and pushing pictures to your pals easy; and online photofinishers can give you great-looking prints easily and inexpensively (and they can even print your picture on a cake; don't try that at home). We've tested 24 tools and services that will help you and your PC keep up with your trigger finger."
PC Magazine steps through a shoot-out of six different photo management tools, but the fact that they put a scant 100 words on a page and surround it with gobs of advertising and cross-promotional glop makes this a hard article to read. I use Picasa (affiliate) for most of my photo management needs, augmented with ACDSEE 6.0 for things that Picasa can't do (like re-naming files, batch re-sizing, etc.). I haven't used all of the products in this round-up, so I can't speak to all of the, but Picasa's ease of use and amazing user-interface make for a very potent combination - it's the only photo management program that I recommend to my parents and in-laws. That should tell you something right there. ;-) More on this topic later...
Fortunately, when the tech world has a problem, innovators turn up everywhere you look, from the familiar Adobe and Apple to newer kids on the block such as modgods and Snapfish. New image management applications let you sift quickly through thousands of images; photo-sharing sites and tools make setting up Web galleries and pushing pictures to your pals easy; and online photofinishers can give you great-looking prints easily and inexpensively (and they can even print your picture on a cake; don't try that at home). We've tested 24 tools and services that will help you and your PC keep up with your trigger finger."
PC Magazine steps through a shoot-out of six different photo management tools, but the fact that they put a scant 100 words on a page and surround it with gobs of advertising and cross-promotional glop makes this a hard article to read. I use Picasa (affiliate) for most of my photo management needs, augmented with ACDSEE 6.0 for things that Picasa can't do (like re-naming files, batch re-sizing, etc.). I haven't used all of the products in this round-up, so I can't speak to all of the, but Picasa's ease of use and amazing user-interface make for a very potent combination - it's the only photo management program that I recommend to my parents and in-laws. That should tell you something right there. ;-) More on this topic later...
