Image Editing Software

A piece of software that, surprisingly, doesn't require huge amounts of memory and disk space is 3d image software and sound plus, released this past June. This is a powerful program that creates multimedia shows with the greatest of ease. In fact, I put together a basic slide show without even realizing I had done so until I went to open my saved file later in the day, lo' and behold, my slides came up full screen, in smooth transition from one to the other, and that was before I even read the user guide! While consumers will have a ball using the program, it qualifies as a top-notch business tool as well.

Add some music or voice-overs, special effects, video clips and you've got a full-blown professional presentation that can even be sent over the Internet right from the software's automatic e-mail command.

PhotoVista from Live Picture is definitely cutting edge. Well, actually it's just the opposite. This unique program takes several photographs and stitches them together into a seamless panorama. The interface is unbelievably simple, considering the complexities involved in putting several photographs together to generate a 360 degree view. The demo and user's guide provide explicit but easy-to-understand directions on how to take a series of photographs to optimize the program's capabilities. Then it's just a few short steps to put the image together. It sounds perfect for all those real estate agents who are going digital. Also from Live Picture is their professional image-editing program of the same name, This full-featured photo software is for Macintosh only and boasts real time editing capabilities. According to user quotes, speed is one of this program's strong suits.

And then there's LivePix from LivePix Company (now incorporated under its own name). LivePix is a cross-platform consumer photo software (the Mac version will be available at retail this fall). Users have access to templates, two-hundred photo images and an array of special effects tools including red-eye removal and photo distortion.

MGI PhotoSuite is just that - a full suite of photo-editing features and functions rolled into one piece of software. Users can edit and manipulate photos, capture screen images from the Internet, create a multimedia slide show, catalog photos and sounds, retrieve photos online through PhotoNet and much more. It's got one of the fullest and most clever selections of magazine covers to which users can add their photos, along with sports cards and a variety of other templates. PhotoSuite also has a Lens Effects feature that allows users to apply visual moods to photographs. The full version comes with a free multimedia library and they've also got a terrific PC PhotoStarter Kit. The Kit comes with the SE (Starter Edition) of MGI PhotoSuite software, an idea/instruction guide and a roll of film (consumers can get the pictures put on a Kodak Picture Disk for free with development).

MGI also recently launched PhotoSuite Sports Cards, a program designed to allow sports enthusiasts the ability to create their own professional looking, personalized sports cards. The software comes complete with over 200 templates covering more than 100 sports.