Jasc Paint Shop Photo Album 4

Last time we looked at photo organisers, back in Issue 55 (April 2003), Paint Shop Photo Album emerged victorious, and we’re pleased to report it’s still leading the image management pack. No other program offers quite so many great features at such a competitive price, integrated into an uncluttered, straightforward interface.

Laid out like a sophisticated Windows Explorer, the program collects pictures from your hard disk, camera or photo CD, displaying them as small, medium or large thumbnails in the central browser. From here you can add keywords pertaining to the location, occasion, photographer and subject of each shot, as well as a title, description and file name. This, along with options for searching by date taken or modified and image or file size, makes it easy to find a needle of a photo in a hard disk haystack.

Every major function is accessible from the main toolbar, including the ability to print and email photos, upload them to an online printing service or web gallery, or burn them to a Video CD. If you’re feeling creative, you can create slideshows complete with music, captions and transitions between pictures; or build panoramic images from multiple shots.

While the image-editing tools are – understandably – far from as elaborate as those of sister program Paint Shop Pro, they’re more than adequate for adding frames, borders and effects to your photos, as well as fixing red-eye, sharpness and colour problems. One option that could be particularly handy for subjects concerned about their weight is Thinify, which knocks off (or puts on) the pounds in a snap.