PhotoTip
3.10
Derryck Croker
finds the ideal companion for digital photography
on his Atari
Take any
digital camera out of its box and give the
packaging a good shake. It's a very safe
bet that no software with the Atari logo
on it will fall out.
Durs Locher
has taken pity on us with his tour-de-force
PhotoTip - it's what every Atari or compatible
user with a digital camera has been waiting
for.
PhotoTip's
easy to use interface is based on one or
more preview panes, where thumbnail pictures
downloaded from the camera (or from a disk
drive, PhotoTip also makes an excellent
librarian for images stored on disk) can
be individually downloaded and saved to
disk.
If you're
lucky enough to own a Compact Flash or Smart
Media card SCSI reader then PhotoTip is
just as happy to load pictures directly
from that, and even has provision for forcing
a media change where necessary. Otherwise
downloading is through the serial interface,
where owners of faster machines such as
TTs and Falcons can expect to be able to
use speeds as high as 115,200 baud. Be prepared
to wait some time to download more than
a few pictures. It's probably best to use
an external mains supply for your camera
while downloading, if you have one.
Once some
pictures have been downloaded and saved
to disk, one of PhotoTip's other great features
comes into play - HTML catalogues, which
can be viewed in your favourite browser.
With some forethought and a few folders,
it's easy to make themed groups of your
favourite subjects. Better still, and if
your browser supports the installation of
client programs to view certain file types
(as CAB does), you can double-click a catalogue
picture and have PhotoTip load with the
corresponding full-size picture loaded for
further processing, or just to have a good
look!
Part and
parcel of digital photography is manipulating
the resulting images - and PhotoTip has
plenty of tools along with a preview pane
for adjusting your picture - there's contrast,
brightness, colour and many more. It has
to be said though that you'll need something
better than ST low for making other than
the very coarsest of adjustments. The block
feature is very handy for clipping out sections,
say for web graphics, and if a block has
been defined PhotoTip's image processing
controls work only on the blocked out region.
If none of
the above have failed to fire your imagination,
PhotoTip even offers a photocopying function
using the GDPS scanner driver protocol,
the Atari platform's answer to the Windows
TWAIN system. Or if you're a remote control
freak, most if not all PhotoTip's functions
can be controlled via GEMScript - how about
taking time-lapse photographs, maybe to
prove that your cat actually does move from time to
time?
You can expect
all the latest standards such as DHST protocol,
drag'n'drop and BubbleGEM help - in return,
PhotoTip expects NVDI 5, HSMODEM and Wdialog
(for single-TOS or versions of MagiC before
5) or N.Dialog for N.AES users, and the
appropriate applications for the hypertext
and BubbleGEM help.
Using the
program is a real doddle (or no-brainer,
for our American readers). I still find
it hard to believe that such a thing is
possible on our platform. For day-to-day
management of my camera it's invaluable,
all I have to do is to plug my Olympus'
serial lead into the back of my Falcon and
I have access to all the pictures stored
there - no more staring at the LCD screen
trying to decide if it's the right picture
for deletion. Even camera functions like
LCD screen brightness and the camera shut-off
time can be set, and if the time or date
isn't right then that's only a mouse-click
away.
Summary |
Name: |
PhotoTip
3.10 |
Author: |
Durs
Locher |
Status: |
Shareware
(unregistered version has some
restrictions), registration
fee, EUR34, CHF50 or US$32 |
URL: |
http://home.sunrise.ch/dursoft/ |
Pros: |
- Does
exactly what it says on
the tin
- Reliable
and useful
- Nothing
else like it on our platform
|
Cons: |
|
Score: |
|
|