CompuPic Pro Review
Introduction
I was very unimpressed with this software. It didn’t have any particular features that I needed or wanted. The only thing I liked about it was the way you could zoom in on a photo and retain the high quality of the original photo. Many of the features are also available in products such as Picasa, which is free software, and Microsoft Office Picture Manager, which is part of Microsoft Office. It has some good photo editing features, more than these other programs, but I would rather invest the money in a pure photo editor.
Price to Value (2 out of 5)
What’s Not:
CompuPic Pro is $79.95. If you have no other photo editor and you need some of the more advanced features, such as batch photo conversions or web site copying, then it might be a good buy. I would not buy this product, as I already have software that does much of what CompuPic Pro does, and I have no need for its advanced features. I would rather buy an advanced photo editing product.
Installation & Setup (4 out of 5)
What’s Hot:
The software can be downloaded from the Photodex website.
What’s Not:
Installation and setup was made slightly lengthier on my Vista machine. First the install failed as it claimed that it couldn’t find a file. Vista then informed me that I had to install it as an Administrator. Then the same thing happened when I tried to enter my registration key. I had to run the program as an Administrator before the registration would accept my key–this, I discovered after sending an email to tech support.
Help & Support (5 out of 5)
What’s Hot:
There is an on-screen help guide, and website support. The on-screen guide was useful to look through to find all the features and the details of each feature. I like the tip of the day that comes up each time you start the program.
Photodex has extremely good email support. I have now used them on several occasions for this and other products. Each time, no matter what day of the week, or time of day, I have received an answer well within 24 hours.
Product Features (2 out of 5)
What’s Hot:
The main features of Photodex CompuPic Pro are:
Photo Editing
[Image Effects.jpg]
You can add various features to a photo such as text or text within a speech bubble, or you can cut a vignette out of a photo.
[Vignette.jpg]
You can edit a photo in various ways.
[Effects.jpg]
You can choose the size of the photo, add borders, add shadows, add headers/footers, and set up the printer.
[Print Screen.jpg]
You can select a number of photos to be printed. Each one appears on its own page. You can move a photo about on the page and you can change its size by simply dragging the surrounding dotted lines. This was a really good feature and very easy to use.
[Email Screen.jpg]
You can select a number of photos to email, and specify the resolution to use.
Picture CD
You can create a picture CD of selected photos.
[Picture CD.jpg]
Slideshow
There are a number of transition effects to choose from as well as speed and sounds.
[Slide Show.jpg]
The resulting slideshow is good and I like the way that you can very quickly page through full-screen images.
Maxi-Show
This is a slideshow that displays a table of slides. The user specifies the number of slides down and across.
[Maxi-Show.jpg]
Picture Index
[Picture Index.jpg]
Convert
As well as editing photos, and adding text to them, you can convert photos to various different file formats.
[Convert.jpg]
Wallpaper
You can select a picture and set it as your desktop wallpaper.
Website Scanning
You can automatically download entire websites to back up or mirror a website.
What’s Not:
I like the feature to move the photo around on the paper, but you can only print one photo per page. If you want to print multiple photos per page, then you have to use the Picture Index feature, but with this you can only specify the spacing between photos.
I used this feature to send photos to two different email addresses that I have. I never received them on either.
Picture Index
I never did work out the point or the use of this.
Wallpaper
One of the options was to choose Wallpaper Changer ,which will cycle through selected photos, but this only works while CompuPic Pro is running. I think this is also true when you set just one photo to be your wallpaper, as that photo kept disappearing on me. I went back to using the standard Windows method.
Internet Features
There were two a number of Internet features available; unfortunately some were already outdated, such as BigNose Printing, for printing posters. Then there is AmazingMail, which will send a real postcard from your photo–unfortunately, the link to this failed, though this service is still in operation.
User Interface (4 out of 5)
What’s Hot:
The user interface is relatively simple and intuitive. The main functions are seen at the top of the screen.
[Base Screen.jpg]
If you want to edit a photo, you double-click it, which brings up a new window with the editing functions at the top of this new window.
What’s Not:
I really don’t like the eye in the corner of the screen blinking at me constantly! You can turn off this annoyance.
Images
Conclusion
I didn’t like this product. If I need to organize my photos, I like to use Picasa. If I need simple edits, I use either Picasa or Microsoft Picture Manager. If I need to do more advanced photo editing, then there are other products that do more advanced editing that I would rather invest in.
