Photo Project, Album software ???

rover · 06-19-2005

I may have mentioned it somewhere, I am doing a personal project, photographing the things I do with my son in 2005. At the end of the year I will put together a digital album for the grand parents and stuff.

Right now I have scanned a boat load of images and have them somewhat organized and stored on my hard drive (yes I need to back them up). I am thinking it is time to find a software package to create the digital album which I want to save onto a CD.

I am thinking of one Album with different chapters for each event. This doesn't have to be a fancy program, I have enough issues using Photoshop Elements, I don't want to learn anything hard here.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

thpook · 06-19-2005

Picasa is free, and has cd authoring tools. Just set up each chapter with it's own folder, and burn using picasa. It will also (if you want) put the picasa executable on the cd so the audience can use it.

peter_n · 06-19-2005

2nd for Picasa, rover. It has been well reviewed.

Picasa 2.0

solane · 06-20-2005

a full version of photoshop CS includes adobe's image "bridge" -- its a mini-application which is more of a picture viewer type thing than a true "image organizer". it will let you view all the images by the folders you have on your harddrive and then use the tools withint Photoshop to manipulate them.

on the mac, iphoto is the free app for image application and it works pretty well. it will also allow for image editing, cd- and dvd-building and quick web page exports.

pros like portfolio from extensis. it seems to get good reviews. i've considered switching to portfolio because i have hit the boudaries with iphoto.

best of luck.

Doug · 06-20-2005

I used iPhoto briefly until I realized that it was "importing" my images into its database, which got larger and larger and larger and slowed to a crawl. You can of course break the collection up into categories, but that inhibits finding what you're looking for. Fooey!

Of course having previously used Extensis Portfolio I far prefer it... it had earlier been Aldus Fetch, then sold to Extensis by Adobe. Portfolio just records the path to the file on your hard drive or CD, plus a thumbnail, so its datafile stays manageable in size yet still allows fast access to the actual picture file.

Photoshop has an image browser feature, as does the shareware GraphicConverter, and that has been adequate for me for some time, so I've not upgraded Portfolio for a while.

I believe Portfolio is available for Windows too.

thpook · 06-21-2005

One that I forgot to mention that is really really good is ACDsee. It's quick, pretty easy to use, and can make flash and PDF slideshows.

link: http://www.acdsystems.com/english/products/acdsee/index

T_om · 06-21-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by rover

I may have mentioned it somewhere, I am doing a personal project, photographing the things I do with my son in 2005. At the end of the year I will put together a digital album for the grand parents and stuff.

Right now I have scanned a boat load of images and have them somewhat organized and stored on my hard drive (yes I need to back them up). I am thinking it is time to find a software package to create the digital album which I want to save onto a CD.

I am thinking of one Album with different chapters for each event. This doesn't have to be a fancy program, I have enough issues using Photoshop Elements, I don't want to learn anything hard here.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I am a bit confused (a natural state for me at times) but are you saying you need software to produce a CD/DVD show of your year's project with your son or do you need a cataloging program to manage (database) your image collection?

To produce a professional looking CD/DVD slideshow, take a look at Pro Show Gold or PixToExe. Both are great at the 'creation' task of assembling a slideshow.

If you are looking for a computer program to catalog your image database, I highly recommend iMatch. See it here http://www.photools.com/index.php

Tom

rover · 06-21-2005

It is a slideshow I am trying to make. This computer stuff is the big hinderance to my digital advancement. I archive the old fashon way, negatives in pages. I don't have a great scanner, so if I loose the digital images I have saved no big deal (in general). I am collecting the images though for a slideshow, at this time I am starting to think of how to produce the final product.

I actually found a starter version of Photoshop Album 2.0 hidden by Dell on my computer which will do the trick if I don't choose something else.

T_om · 06-21-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by rover

It is a slideshow I am trying to make. This computer stuff is the big hinderance to my digital advancement. I archive the old fashon way, negatives in pages. I don't have a great scanner, so if I loose the digital images I have saved no big deal (in general). I am collecting the images though for a slideshow, at this time I am starting to think of how to produce the final product.

I actually found a starter version of Photoshop Album 2.0 hidden by Dell on my computer which will do the trick if I don't choose something else.

Ah, then I would reiterate my recommendations of Pro Show Gold and PixToExe. They are VERY powerful tools to allow the creation of just what you want. They have fades, adjustable timing, music, etc. I believe both also have trial versions so you can get a feel for the features of each.

Works a treat.

Tom

Tom Diaz · 06-21-2005

I think Photoshop Album 2.0 may do the job for you. I have used it plenty of times. It will produce a slide show inside a PDF file. You can then send the PDF file to anyone you want, and they can use the free and ubiquitous Adobe Reader to open it, which will display the show on their computer. It'll also organize your digital pictures and make minor fixes to them.

The new version of Photoshop Elements (3.0) has similar functions built into it, if you want to upgrade a little later to a product that has more sophisticated image-fixing features.