Reviewed
by: Lianne
Reitter, July 2004
Published
by: SendPhotos,
Inc.
Requires: Windows
98 through Vista; will run under Virtual PC for Mac
users; Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, 15MB hard drive
space required for installation; Mac OS X—product
will run under Virtual PC
MSRP: $29.95
(download)
If
you have family or friends, a digital camera or a
scanner, you undoubtedly know the pains involved
in sending pictures over the Internet. SendPhotos
allows you to easily send your pictures over the
Internet in a friendly, instantly viewable format
using colorful backgrounds, frames and caption text.
Novatix has released this new "Gold" version
and much to my delight, I got to review my all time
favorite piece of software. For those of you who
may have missed my review of the first release of
SendPhotos let me give you an idea of what this gem
does and how it works.
You
may not think that attaching photos to e-mail is
really that difficult, but remember those on the
receiving end? I got really tired of getting pictures
from my sister-in-law of my new niece’s nostrils.
The pictures were so large, that’s all I could
see of my niece without endless scrolling, until
I saved the attachment to my hard drive and viewed
it using another piece of software. And then I would
get five or six pictures of their trip to the beach
in one e-mail and by the time I was able to actually
view the last picture I didn't even care anymore;
it was too long and too convoluted a process until
SendPhotos came along.
This
beautiful piece of software installs easily. Launch
the program and it immediately presents you with
a familiar Windows Explorer-like interface from which
you can choose the pictures you want to send. Once
your choices have been made you proceed to the layout
area where you can pick the background or stationery,
the size of your pictures, the frames you want to
use, shadow effects, text color and how you want
to pictures to line up in the final e-mail. |
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Once
you are satisfied with your creation, a simple click of
the finish button brings up your e-mail software and you
are ready to send your pictures. You need only pick the
lucky recipients.
For
those of you who already know the wonders of SendPhotos
there is great news. It’s even better! There are
several new features in SendPhotos Gold that will delight
and inspire. First, you can now edit your photos on the
fly. By mousing over the picture in the layout screen
, a little yellow help pop-up lets you know that you
can click on the picture once to enter the editing menu.
You can quickly and easily crop your picture, correct
brightness and contrast levels, even get rid of red-eye.
These editing features are nowhere near what you might
find in full photo editing software packages, but for
sending your digital pictures quickly, and just the way
you want them, you'll find they are just what you need.
The
second truly brilliant addition in SendPhotos Gold is
the ability to make your own stationery. Now I wouldn't
have thought this a necessity at all as the stationery
available for free download from the SendPhotos web site
is voluminous, well designed and really quite creative.
However, now that I can make my own, I've been thinking
of all sorts of different ideas using my own pictures
and my collection of clip art.
The
greatest custom stationery application would be creating
SendPhotos pages for your personal web site. That brings
me to the third great new feature in SendPhotos Gold:
the ability to export your final creation as an HTML
page. Now creating and formatting your web pages couldn't
possibly get any easier than this.
SendPhotos
Gold is worth it’s weight in it . . . gold that
is, which makes the purchase price an absolute bargain.
There is even a fully detailed electronic manual at the
web site to take you through the product step-by-step.
But don't stop with just buying a copy for yourself.
Remember that saying “’Tis better to give
than to receive?" Well in this case if you gift
registered copies of SendPhotos to your family and friends
you will receive their pictures in a manner far more
pleasurable than the old fashioned way. No more niece’s
nostrils! I love this software. Highly recommended.
