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Digital Diary
 John M. Moran
Digital Picture Albums
June 27, 2002
No
film, no developing, no printing.
As any camera buff
will tell you, those are three of the best features of digital
cameras.
But the growing number of digital camera
owners are also confronting a downside: With no prints to pass
around, how do you show digital photographs to
others?
Sure, you can print out your digital photos.
They'll look pretty nice too, if you've got a good camera and
a quality printer. But the cost of the ink and glossy paper
will probably limit how often you want make
printouts.
So why not stay digital instead? Two new
software packages offer different takes on a
solution.
One, called FlipAlbum Suite 4.0 by E-Book
Systems, uses your PC to create a virtual photo album. The
user places digital images on virtual "pages" that flip or
turn with a mouse-click. It really looks like a traditional
album.
FlipAlbum enables users to add captions to
photographs. It also automatically creates both a table of
contents and an index to the album for easy reference. You can
even configure different album styles, controlling cover
colors, binder types, page textures and other aspects of the
display.
Sharing photos using FlipAlbum is a snap. Once
an album has been created, it can be easily transferred to
CD-ROM or other storage medium for mailing to friends and
relatives. Uploading to the Internet is also possible, but
given the large size of digital photos, you'll want to have a
fast connection if you choose this option.
If there's a
shortcoming to FlipAlbum, it's a lack of photo-editing tools.
This program will help you organize the images into a
collection, but you'll need another program if you first want
to polish the photos up a bit. The package has a suggested
retail price of $74.95, but a less-expensive version with
fewer features is available. See www.flip album.com for
details.
Speaking of enhancement, if you like a little
razzle-dazzle with your photo presentations, try 3D-Album,
version 2.0, from Micro Research Institute.
This
program offers more than 20 three-dimensional styles for
presenting digital photographs in a slideshow.
One
style, for example, has photos sweep forward toward the
viewer, as if surfacing from deep in the PC. Others spin as if
on a virtual "photo cube." Still others use more elaborate
scenery, such as when photos appear on a virtual hot-air
balloon as it floats over a mountain landscape.
All
this motion was a bit dizzying for me, but there's no denying
the software allows for eye-catching presentations. You can
also use 3D-Album to create virtual photo albums, and create
screensavers for your PC with your own pictures.
As
with FlipAlbum, you can take presentations created with
3D-Album and burn them to CD, upload them to the Net or e-mail
them as a file attachment. 3D-Album has a retail price of
$39.95. Details are on the web at
www.3d-album.com.
Both of these products are graphics-
and storage- intensive, so be sure to check the system
requirements before purchasing. Most late-model PCs should
have no problem.
Be sure to load up on blank CD-ROMs.
With either package, you'll be creating snazzy photo displays
and sharing them with friends and family in no
time.
John Moran's e-mail address is
moran@courant.com.
E-mail: moran@courant.com
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