Jewish World Review July 17, 2002 / 8 Menachem-Av, 5762
By Mark Kellner
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
If you have a digital camera, the chances are very good that
you are using the software that came with the camera to store,
manipulate and catalog your images.
However, there is a new program you might want to take a look
at as a great "front end" to digital photography. It's called "After
Shot" and it comes from a company called Jasc Software. The software
is priced at $49 and that's before a $10 rebate, making the price
rather reasonable.
Load this software on a Windows-based PC, attach a digital
camera, and watch some magic begin to happen. First, the click of a
button onscreen will import photos from the digital camera and
arrange them for easy viewing. Now, this is something similar
programs will do, but the difference here is that you can
automatically select and rename the entire run of pictures. Instead
of a generic name such as "P101025O" - or something equally
meaningless - you can rename the photos, in one batch, as
"Vacation Trip," each with a sequential number. This makes more
sense, and makes groups of photographs easier to find as you fill up
your computer with more and more digital photos.
It is also possible to assign a key word to a given photo, or
group of photos, again making it easy to do searches and locate
photos weeks or months later. The photographs can be grouped into a
slide show or even arranged as a QuickTime movie, either of which can
be "burned" onto a CD-ROM or sent via e-mail to other recipients. You
can add sound to a given photograph, and with careful planning,
create a QuickTime movie that has not only a sequence of pictures but
narration as well. Everything I've described so far can be done
intuitively and easily. While the program comes up with
documentation, extensive study may not be necessary since the program
seems to function very easily and clearly for users. Shannon Weber, a
product-marketing manager at the firm, told me that the software was
designed to be easy to use, particularly for people who are new to
digital photography and the manipulation of pictures on a computer.
This does not mean, however, that the software is limited in
its capabilities. Photographs can be adjusted for contrast, color,
"red eye" correction and other editing functions. A particularly
impressive feature was the ability to "stitch" a series of
photographs into a single image. Once the images are stitched
together, suggestions for cropping are made. The resultant image
could be a panorama of the seashore or skyline, or a montage of
scenes from a family picnic. This is the kind of function that
normally is done by people with extensive training in manipulating
images. In this case, After Shot does the work for you.
The program includes functions to send photos by e-mail, or
create a Web site with varying layouts of the pictures. Again, such
abilities are usually found in programs costing much more then $49
and with a much steeper learning curve.
Perhaps the crowning achievement of this program is that all
of these features are combined with a printing layout section that is
second to none. You can arrange photos in all sorts of positions and
sizes to create a page that lets the user take the best advantage of
a sheet of expensive photo printing paper in sizes ranging from
4-by-6 inches down to pocket-size.
What's more, if you need to adjust or zoom in on a particular
photograph, you can do this on the page layout itself.
Should you want to take a given photograph and work on the
picture in another application, it's a simple step of dragging the
photo on to a "launch bar" to start the other program and work with
the picture. This is another nice convenience feature other software
makers would do well to emulate.
It's a shame that this program is not currently bundled with
digital cameras, but even if your camera arrived with a range of
programs, you owe it to yourself to check out After Shot as a
wonderful tool that will enhance your digital photography experience.
More information on After Shot can be found at www.jasc.com.
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JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
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