PhotoMix
PhotoMix lets you take images direct from a digital camera (or scanned images) and create scrapbooks and collages using themed "graphic kits" or templates. When completed you can print the pages on glossy paper or surround them with virtual frames and add them to your digital scrapbook collection.
Making scrapbook pages with PhotoMix is a simple drag-and-drop affair. You can zoom into any of the images, add text and graphics, and finally email, print or store the result. The vendor insists that the program is extremely easy to use, saying that the learning curve is "not a curve but rather a short straight line."
Free and commercial addins (additional graphics kits) are available, including those with seasonal and special interest themes. They include a military addin designed especially "for military people and patriots." There are also dozens of Amy Teets designs of a general nature with titles like "Sophisticated," "Extraordinary," "Showdown," and "Sublime."
Comment
PhotoMix has a lot going for it: attractive templates, easy operation, plenty of updated graphics and useful tutorials help to make it an above-average, even classy, scrapbooking option. It lacks proper photo editing tools, but maybe editing is a task that is best done in a specialist program. In practice, it is quite possible that a different family member will process the images, then pass them to the scrapbooker for layout and text.
Unlike photo editing, PhotoMix needs no computer literacy skills, yet good results can be achieved if you work with well-adjusted images.
Tech info
- OS: Windows 98 onward
- Price level: Approx. $30 (Addins $5 each)
fCoder Group
fCoder Group, Inc. provides digital document and image processing applications to corporations, educational institutions, government agencies and individual consumers worldwide. It has three divisions: document imaging, image processing, and digital photo editing.
From the same vendor:
- Image Converter Plus
- Universal Document Converter
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