H&M Software StudioLine Photo 2 Review

Having been an avid photographer for many years with a 35 mm. camera, I had accumulated a huge number of prints and slides and consequently had to spend many hours on many occasions locating, sorting, and filing all those mementoes. Now that I have a digital camera, I?m taking even more pictures than ever. It seems much easier to get more great pictures then ever before.

The problem that remains, and now made much worse with the quantity of pictures taken, is still the time consuming one of how to file and keep track of them without spending an inordinate amount of time doing it.

StudioLine Photo 2 may be just the answer. It seems to be a well thought out solution that not only can organize and archive all those precious images, but allows considerable editing, slideshow presentations, burning to CD?s or DVD?s, and even placing high- resolutions images to a web gallery.

The software came with a well-written manual both in hard copy (over 100 pages) and on-line (over 11MB) along with a good on-screen introduction, tour, and tutorials. The tutorials appeared in Acrobat Reader operating independently of the program so it was very easy to read and try just by flipping back and forth between the two screens. I had read the entire manual before installing the program, but found that the tutorials really helped to become more quickly familiar with all of the commands, even though they are quite logically laid out. There are quite a few of them because the program strives to allow a lot of flexibility and pays much attention to providing a wide range of choices.

The power of this program and all it can do impresses me. An example is the ability to fully annotate the images in a database-type of procedure that then allows rapid searches and management of the images. If a picture is to be emailed, not only can you pick the resolution and format but also you can then pick from the descriptive database what information you want to be included with the image. This can be easily done for just one or for many with a batch command.

Pictures and be converted to all the common formats for use in other applications and you can save a lot of disk space by off-loading selected pictures to CD or DVD, leaving only a small proxy image with a symbol in case retrieval is desired.

Once StudioLine is installed, the initial startup produces a window that presents access to a number of documents to help become familiar with the commands. These include a Quick Tour, a slide show that highlights the many capabilities of this program. Next follow tutorials that give step-by-step instructions. Spending a little time here in the beginning will pay off in being able to do more with photo management then you expected when you acquired this program.

StudioLine Photo 2 not only archives digital images, but also allows any one or group of images to be located quickly and efficiently with a powerful search engine that results in very easy photo management. Thousands of pictures can be centrally managed this way. User-defined categories give you absolute control. I especially like that I can name or rename any picture with something that is more meaningful for me including the use of duplicate names. Not only are you able to do thorough searches, you are also able to choose sort criteria to set up pictures in any desired sequence if you do not care to do so manually. To prevent loss of data if the hard drive should fail, the entire image library can be backed up to a CD or DVD without additional software.

Once your pictures have been loaded from a digital camera, scanner, CD, DVD, memory card, or hard-drive you are able to do quite an extensive editing procedure as you organize your photos. Included in the software is the ability to rotate, crop, red-eye correct, auto-tone, and color correct.

Filters may be applied that include colorizing, stained glass, embossing, and black and white. Any effect or change can be reversed at any time so there is no worry about making a mistake, since the original is always kept intact.

All filters, effects and settings are kept in a separate stack, which is readily monitored for all actions, and you no longer have to save or file each time after applying an editing step. Batch processing can also save time if the same adjustments are required by a number of photos.

As if this is not enough to satisfy most people, here are a few more things that can be done without additional software: StudioLine will compile your images into an on-screen slide show. Captions may be added, if desired.

Nowadays people also desire to email a lot of their pictures. You are able to define the best size and quality of an image to be sent and also include descriptions. The ability to burn a CD or DVD is just not for archiving, but also for the purpose of viewing on other computers, or as a slide show on a TV (assuming a JPEG-capable DVD player), or even to be taken to a photo store for prints to be made. That is not to say that if you have a printer attached to the computer you cannot print them yourself. In fact, you can save paper and money utilizing the print preview feature, optimizing the position of the print, using crop marks and even standard picture sizes.

The only function that I have not checked out is the ability to publish high- resolution pictures to a web-gallery. Apparently StudioLine has ready-to-use templates that will easily allow you to share your images with your friends and family who have Internet access.

I have been using iPhoto on a Mac since I did not find anything that I liked on pc's that I liked for photo management. Now I may just start using my pc more often for editing all my digital images.

Frank Kowal
San Gabriel Valley Technology User Group Arcadia, CA