Image Management
Buy Now...
While some might not be familiar with Allume Systems, the company has been around for a fair number of years. Previously known as Aladdin Systems, the company has built up a good reputation for developing utilities for the Windows and Macintosh platforms. The company's latest PC product to reach me is entitled Personal ImageManager which is available for a download purchase either from its own website (www.personalimagemanager.com) or Allume's main site (www.allume.com/win/imagemgr/).
While aimed primarily at digital camera owners, Personal ImageManager does not neglect other types of users who need to organise, edit, email and print images stored on their computer. Images can be imported into the application direct from a digital camera or scanner. There is also an option for the program to check hard disks or optical media for images. However this is not Personal ImageManager's strong point. This feature will only work with specified folders on an individual basis. As each folder is checked, the user will then have to select the images required before pointing the program to the next folder to be searched. This does tend to make this a long drawn out process. An easier method would have been to allow the search to be conducted over the scope of the whole hard disk.
Once this collecting process has been completed, the images will be displayed as thumbnails in a scrollable strip either at the bottom or right side of the screen depending upon the current mode. Options are available to sort the images by name, date or manually using drag and drop.
By doubling clicking on an image or switching to Enhance mode, the current image will be displayed in the main window where it can be viewed in full size and enhanced in a variety of ways. A one-click enhance button can be used for automatic enhancement of the image while other tools allow for the removal of red eye; adjustment of brightness, contrast, colour and hue; cropping the image; plus applying some special effects. Although there is a limited choice of effects available, the results produced are excellent. I especially like the one that converts a photograph to a pencil drawing.
The product's third mode allows for captions to be added to the image. Along with date, comment, and photographer's name, keywords, category grouping and rating score can be added. You also have the ability to highlight specific areas of the image by the placement of circles, squares and arrows. Personal ImageManager comes with approximately 400 well-drawn clip art images grouped into various categories. These resizable images can be added to photographs to create amusing effects. While not to everybody's taste, an uninspiring scene could quickly be enlivened with a couple of clip art additions.
Personal ImageManager's fourth, and final, mode is that of Shared Photos. Here you will find options to send photos by email; download images direct to a PocketPC; create HTML pages for uploading to a website; burn a CD; and print images either individually or as part of a contact sheet. Wizards are used to lead the user though each of these tasks.
Apart from the piecemeal approach to search a hard disk for images, I found Personal ImageManager easy to use and was pleased with the results achieved. This tile requires Windows 98SE or later with 80MB of hard disk space and 16MB of RAM. The price has been set at$29.99.
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