NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article
On Computers:
Image Cataloger Gives After Shot Nice Angle

by Bob Schwabach, May 2002
http://www.oncomp.com
Reprinted from 03/18/02 ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE with permission
bobschwab@oncomp.com (click to email author)


Jasc's new After Shot is an eye opener. It's designed for digital camera users and has the usual image-editing tools you find in nearly all such packages. But two features are different.

The first is a stitching routine that neatly combines separate images into a single panoramic view. Providing panoramic views is particularly popular with Realtors and travel agents; they can take shots of a property or a scene from slightly changing angles and then stitch them together into an impressive picture.

But it's the second feature that provides the real power here. It's a superb, easy-to-use image cataloger. When a digital camera is connected to the computer, a single click in the software brings all the images into After Shot as thumbnails. Even the brief movies that many digital cameras can take are brought in as single frames in sequence and can be accessed as single frames. Images can be grouped into related-subject albums by dragging the mouse over a large number or clicking them individually.

The sorting of digital photos quickly becomes an enormous problem for individuals who take a lot of pictures, but especially for businesses and schools, that can very quickly accumulate thousands of shots of products, procedures, books, people, etc. Each image in an album can be renamed -- instead of being stuck with the usual naming practice of undecipherable codes like "P1000107.jpg" -- and the names can be searched by keyword. The album itself can be named to describe the subject -- window parts, for example -- and each image in that album will then be automatically named "window part 1, 2, 3," etc. Images in an album can be edited as a batch as well: They can all be flipped, brightened, etc.

This kind of album and catalog creation can be done by many image editing programs, but nothing we've seen is as easy and fast as this one. After Shot is $49, for Windows 98 and up. Web: http://www.jasc.com.

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