StudioLine Photo Classic
StudioLine Photo Classic combines image viewing, organizing and editing with layout, publishing and backup. It is a serious contender for the attention of photographers and is aimed primarily at enthusiasts and professionals. A cut-down, Basic (and free) edition is available for novices.
StudioLine Photo Classic has a customizable interface laid out attractively in a modern style with switchable panes. There is a quick-step bar to guide beginners, a slider control to vary the size of thumbnails, a property pane that displays information about the images, input features for ranking images with a 5-star system, and an editing pane that shows the image tools currently being used.
Integrated editing functions include all those you would expect in a package of this quality: one-click white balance, live histogram showing red, green and blue channels, dual monitor support, image rotation, cropping, and quick red-eye/pet-eye removal. It detects and uses any available ICC color profiles.
Organizing utilities let you sort your images into albums and folders, mimicking, if necessary, the folder structure on your hard disk. You can place shortcuts within folders, so that images can appear in different places at the same time. It offers full control over IPTC and Exif metadata, and batch processing so you can apply the same descriptions, keywords and ranking to multiple images. Powerful search options let you locate individual images quickly.
Layout and publishing options include printing images and contact sheets in pre-determined or customized formats, plus facilities to create scrapbook pages, newsletters, e-cards or certificates. Export and email facilities are available with cropping and sharpening, and there is a basic slide show feature as well.
Comment
Any attempt to summarize the features in StudioLine Photo Classic soon runs out of space because there are so many of them. Did we mention the backup controls that are part of the package, or the offload feature that lets you move large originals to DVD, leaving behind a lightweight proxy? This feature is especially neat because you can click on the proxy and it tells you where to find the original. Supported languages are English, German, French, Italian and Spanish.
StudioLine Photo Classic is astonishing value and there does not appear to be any downside except the need to learn your way around an interface that is unfamiliar if you are accustomed to using other software.
Tech info
- OS: Windows 98 onward
- Price level: Approx. $30
H&M Software
A privately held corporation, H&M has sales and support centers in the U.S. and several European nations. Founded in Germany 30 years ago, H&M has huge experience in software development and marketing.
Its StudioLine products, in particular, are notable for being easy to use by novices while still having a comprehensive array of features.
From the same vendor:
- StudioLine DigitalXpress
- StudioLine Web
- StudioLine Photo Basic
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