Adobe Photoshop Album [Old Version]

Additional Adobe Photoshop Album [Old Version] Information

Photoshop Album is divided into six distinct regions, all of which are accessed via a single screen. The first, appropriately entitled Get Photos, automatically gathers and sorts images from sources such as cameras or card readers, scanners, or existing folders you may already have stored inside your computer. It is important to note that the program doesn't actually move files already on your hard drive; rather it simply provides an easier way to catalog them.

The second section, Organize, groups and categorizes photos by date or by customizable subject matters, allowing you to quickly "tag" thumbnails of your shots in much the same way you'd place ID tags on luggage. Unique to Photoshop Album is its "timeline" feature--a scrollable bar graph located at the top of the screen that visually displays the number of photos from a given month or folder.

The program's Fix Photo tool may be disappointing to Adobe veterans in that it is no more sophisticated than most shareware or beginner editing utilities. Indeed, you must use Adobe's pricier Photoshop Elements or a competing product if you want to perform manipulations beyond basic cropping, redeye correction, or brightness, contrast and color adjustments. The impressive "Creation," conversely, generates a number of exciting photo presentations, including audio-enhanced slideshows and video CDs and printable albums, calendars and greetings cards. The program even warns you if your image quality, size or orientation isn't ideal for printing.

Photoshop Album also facilitates email and Internet photo sharing of both individual photos and entire slideshows, although Adobe doesn't maintain its own sharing site and therefore forces you to belong to a third-party site if you want to publish on the Web. --Gord Goble

What Customers Say About Adobe Photoshop Album [Old Version]:

If you want to edit the photo, you should use a photo editing program - of which many good ones exist. This program, which I have used for many years, in my opinion is intended ONLY for storing photos in a logical way. I am writing this because of all the negative reviews stating that this program is weak for editing or making DVDs, etc. Once the photo is edited, the "fixed" version is now what you see in the PhotoShop Album program. First, it does not contain the photo images, only a pointer (shortcut) to those images which are stored elsewhere on the computer. You can store them in categories and sub-categories or you can access them by a simple time-line for when the photo was taken. I use Windows "My Pictures" file to store all my GOOD photos and PhotoShop Album to store links to the BEST photos - further, this program is what my iTunes (and my iPod) link to. It's a great cataloging program - just don't use it for editing and say you're disappointed.

Also, I create title pages in Photoshop and import them, and in the "create" stage, you can't make out the words to figure out where to place them. It is never easy to do. I have used Photo Album versions 1 and 2, and have created CD slide shows of my bicycle tours. Also, I have prepared complete slide shows and gotten to the point where I was previewing them (as happened today) and the program would freeze, and I lost hours of work. When you first import photos into the program's "well" they are large enough to see what's in them. When you go to the next stage (the "create" stage) -- where you can sort and re-arrange the slides -- the photos are way too small and you can't enlarge them. Not good. Now we know why Adobe has stopped selling the program and is just providing a simple version for free.

Money down the drain. I am very displeased that when you pay for a program and you receive a 10 page book on how to use it and have a questions that Adobe wants to charge you 40.00 to answer a question. I thought I had a great program to use for our church pictures, but I was mistaken. I called and they said that is there policy. They will be glad to answer installation problems, but not on how to use their product.

Album delivers all of the basic features you would expect from such a product with some minor weaknesses and some nice surprises. The backup feature is very easy to use but it requires a new CD each time, even if you are doing incremental backups and only bakcup a small number of files. The Fix function is a bit weak, even compared to some free programs. Specifically, the lighten/darken feature is a bit weak and AutoFix does not seem to make any significant improvements to photos. This is wasteful and is a weakness. The photo Move and Rename features also add a lot of value and work well.

Adobe has a good reputation, but this clunker is not up to their usual standard. The program claims to support WIN98 SE, but during installation I get a message telling me it won't support my operating system, which is, you guessed it, Windows 98 Second Edition.Another reviewer here mentioned that he had the same trouble and had to do an exhaustive search through the Adobe user forums to find a solution.

A look at the forum section will give you an idea of the MANY problems users are having trying to make this buggy software work properly. I installed the Starter Edition to see if I wanted to buy the full program later.

I would advise anyone considering buying Adobe Photoshop Album to visit Adobe's website. It simply won't install on my computer.

My experience with Starter Edition was very positive. The full version is another story altogether.

Its pretty sad when a software comany's user base has to assist each other to use one of its products. Avoid it.