Digital cameras, with prices tumbling and features improving, make a
great Christmas gift. If you're giving one - or if you simply need a
stocking stuffer for someone who's already got one - consider some
software to make picture editing and gathering easier and more fun.
There are dozens of genres and packages from which to choose: Pure
image editors, digital picture viewers and catalogers, album makers, and
others that are just hard to define.
Tops in the "hard to define" category is
CrazyTalk ($39.95, http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/)
I have to admit I didn't hold out much hope for this animation package
when the RealIllusion's PR rep pitched it to me. But, after blowing an
entire afternoon turning my own mug into Max Headroom, it just might be
one of my favorite software imaging toys.
The premise is simple. You take a head - a man, a woman, a robot, a
dog, etc. - from CrazyTalk's image gallery and supply your own words,
either in the form of a digitally recorded .wav file from your PC or a
text file using Windows' text-to-speech converter. CrazyTalk animates
the image so it appears to be speaking the words.
This isn't one of those Jay Leno tricks where a pair of superimposed
lips are the only thing moving on an otherwise unanimated head.
CrazyTalk's animation engine maps dozens of points on the human (or
other) face: eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, cheekbones, lips, chin, nose, and
points in between. Its fitting editor even allows you to map a wireframe
model to your own photographically stored face.
The result is an entire face that moves and even appears to express
emotion. Now this isn't Shrek-like technology, and the folks at Pixar
having nothing to fear. But for the casual home user who'd like to send
an animated greeting to Aunt Martha - with your head or anybody else's -
CrazyTalk is a lot of crazy fun.
My favorite album maker is still eBook Systems'
Flip Album ($24.95 to $139.95, http://www.flipalbum.com/) The
program allows you to create and share virtual photo albums on your PC,
on compact disc or on the Web. Its chief claim to fame is its nifty 3D
visualization that imitates a real photo album. Pages flip (complete
with a computerized swish) from one picture to the next. Annotation
modes let you add text. You can change the albums' covers, page styles,
and a host of other visual qualities.
New to version 5.0 are improvements to the page flipping model, new
options for how the pictures and text appear on the pages, the ability
to search text annotations for particular words, and the ability for
people viewing the albums to pick a picture from an album to use as a
desktop wallpaper. It's also easier to work with text and images than in
previous versions of Flip Album. But the coolest new tool is the ability
(in the higher end versions) to export the albums to the video CD format
for playback on televisions equipped with VCD-capable DVD players.
Coming in a close second is PhotoParade.
($19.99 to $39.99, http://www.photoparade.com/ for
both PCs and Macs). This slideshow producer doesn't have the 3D album
glitz of Flip Album, but it does offer a host of themes and the easiest
slideshow production I've seen to date.
A wizard guides you through the process of selecting pictures from
your hard drive or from a photo CD, selecting a visual theme, picking
background music, and producing the final file. It's that simple. And
built-in tools help you brighten, sharpen, trim and rotate your
pictures.
About those themes: You can make your slideshow look like an old
fashioned photo album or like a changing billboard on a city street. The
number of themes you get depends on the package you purchase, and you
can always purchase more. I got the biggest kick out of the slideshow
theme, in which the pictures appear on a virtual screen just like those
old slideshows your relatives used to make you watch (complete with an
out of focus first image and sound effects of coughing, laughing and an
occasional "ooooh.").
One gripe: In its effort to be easy to use, some things can't be
tweaked. The program lets you pick an MP3 file as background music, but
doesn't appear to let you turn off a theme's sound effects (at least not
that I could find). The result is an occasional clash of sound.
Otherwise, the program is about as easy as slideshow presentation gets.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 ($99, http://www.adobe.com/ Mac and PC),
should be on the Christmas list of anyone who has or is getting a
digital camera or anyone who shoots film and scans pictures into their
computer.
Adobe's Photoshop (a very expensive $695 program) is THE standard in
digital image editing. Photoshop Elements is a stripped-down version for
the home user. What's missing? Mostly features related to the digital
imaging needs of people who produce newspapers and magazines. Mostly
things that you'll never miss.
What can you do? Import pictures from your digital camera or capture
frames from downloaded video files. Correct color. Fix red-eye problems.
Crop pictures. Use filters to give your pictures a creative or artsy
look. Export otherwise big image files to smaller gifs or jpegs for use
on web pages or for sending via e-mail.
There are even features geared for home use that can't be had in the
full blown version of Photoshop, like the ability to create PDF-based
slideshows for sharing on PCs, Macs and palmtop computers, and tools for
creating entire pages of pictures for outputting to a printer.
I've used Photoshop and I've used Elements, and Elements deserves
just as many accolades and stars as its big brother.
Tom Gromak can be reached at mailto:tgromak@detnews.com
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