 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group PhotoRecall 1.0 Bernadette Houghton bernieh@iaccess.com.au |
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If you're like me, organising your photos is one of those things you plan to
do "one day". In the meantime, it's difficult to find specific photos, even dating them is a pain. And the
problem gets larger and more pressing with each roll you send for processing. Now, as if that wasn't bad
enough, I've started accumulating a sizeable collection of photos on my computer as well - and I feel the
same pain towards them that I do when I think about my chaotic hard-copy collection. At least, I did until
PhotoRecall (PR) came my way. If you want a digital photo manager without a high learning curve, PR is
definitely worth a look.
PR is really three separate utilities that all work together - the Library stores your photos and albums, the
Darkroom is where you touch up and enhance photos, and the UtilityRoom is where you perform various
housekeeping duties on your image database. Let's look at these in a little more depth...
Library
The Library is where most of PR's fun takes place. Apart from organising your photos into albums, you
can:
- Set photos as your Windows wallpaper
- Package albums as portable slideshows
- Print albums
- E-mail albums to your friends and relatives
- Export and compress all the images in the current album to a single directory. This is especially useful if you store your image files in different locations on your hard drive and want to bring them together for some reason (archiving, perhaps).
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 Figure 2. Browsing an album |
PR operates on a single central database, although you can create as many
albums as you wish. You can give each photo a title and append a few notes, and PR will create a link to the
original file. As you open albums, it builds and displays temporary thumbnails for each image. If you prefer,
you can choose to copy the image file itself to the database, or create permanent thumbnails. This latter
option saves disk space and means you can archive the original image, yet still view it in your album.
PR's search engine can scan existing albums and the Internet for pictures matching your search criteria. You
can search on multiple keywords, and PR will look for images matching any or all of your
keywords. You can also use wildcard characters, although the online manual is silent about this. The success
of the search feature depends on how well the images have been originally catalogued; I had some trouble
locating specific pictures that I knew existed on the Internet (e.g. Floral Finesse), but was able to
retrieve some useful images when searching for something more generic (e.g. red sports car). The Internet
search is surprisingly fast, but the actual pictures take some time to download - no fault of PR.
Double-clicking an image in an album opens the image up in the Darkroom or, if you prefer, another
image-editing program of your choice.
Darkroom
You can use the Darkroom on its own, or as an integrated component of the PR Library. Here you correct any
problems with your photos, or enhance them with a few special effects. As well as basic manipulations, such
as cropping, flipping, rotating and re-sizing, you can adjust the brightness, contrast, focus and exposure,
and make simple colour corrections. For each kind of adjustment, PR displays nine example thumbnails, and you
simply select whichever thumbnail looks the best.
You can invert colours, apply vignettes (faded edges) or map your photographs to spheres or cylinders for
some creative effects. Other special effects are Mosaic, Impressionist, Watercolour, Emboss and Posterize.
Like the image adjustment tools, you apply special effects by choosing from a selection of
examples.
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UtilityRoom
The UtilityRoom is a simple menu screen offering you the options of compressing, repairing, backing up or
restoring your image database. Just select an option from the menu, and PR performs the task automatically -
there are no dialog boxes or any other query screens in the way.
Assessment
My main concern with PhotoRecall is its default of creating temporary thumbnails unless specifically told
otherwise. You can't change the default, and once you've added something to an album, the only way to alter
the way it's stored is to remove the image, then add it to the album again. Given that many of PR's users may
not realise the advantages of permanent thumbnails (not everyone reads the manual), I don't think this is a
wise choice. PR also has a habit of locking up for a few seconds (the Windows hourglass appears) when I scan
the Library menu. Other than this, it works well and recognises my Logitech Scanman without any fuss. There
is only an online user manual, but I didn't miss not having a paper manual since PR is so intuitive.
The Darkroom has a minimum of image enhancement tools and is a simple and straightforward program. On the
downside, adjustments affect the whole image so it can be difficult to correct localised problems such as red
eyes or over/under exposure of specific areas.
PR's main strength is its simplicity. If you want a no-frills photo management program that you can jump into
straight away, PR fits the bill. It does the job and does it quickly and simply. Its tools are
straightforward and virtually foolproof, and if you need more power than the Darkroom offers, you can easily
substitute another image-editing program without losing any of PR's main benefits. If you regularly search
for pictures on the Internet, PR's search feature definitely beats the alternative - invoking a search
engine, then trial and error browsing of countless Web pages to locate suitable pictures.
Without doubt, PhotoRecall is a very capable program.
Reprinted from the March 1998 issue of PC Update, the
magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
