Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 mini review
Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:56 pmI've just been playing around a bit with the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=003">Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006</a>, so I thought i'd post my little mini review of it in case anyone is interested.
Having used the previous version of Digital Image Suite, I figured it wouldn't be too bad, so I thought i'd give it a burl.
There are a lot of features I haven't used yet, so this review isn't a complete review of the software.. just the features i've tried, hence the mini review.
The software actually has two programs. The first is the Editor, which you use to perfect your photo's, and the second is the library for keeping track of your photos.
The Editor has some nice features. You can get rid of winkles, dust, blemishes, pimples, scratches and the like just by clicking on the pimple etc in question. You can't get any easier than that. I tried it on a photo of myself where my face had quite a few rashes from my Excema, and within a couple of minutes, I looked like Tom Cruise.. oh wait.. sorry.. wrong program
Seriously, within a couple of minutes, my face looked pretty damn good. I know that can be debated My only minor concern was when using the tool for removing spots and blemishes. As far as I could tell, there was no way of making the brush size smaller for small areas, however, I don't think this would be too much of a problem in normal practice. It was just an observation I made at the time. Bare in mind, this isn't a Photoshop replacement, but rather an additional tool for cutting down on your PP for common tasks.
It also has a feature for removal of objects. I tried it on a pot plant in a busy photo and while it did a pretty admerable job, it wasn't perfect, but really, if you think about it, I don't think any software would do it perfectly. It can be a good start, and then you can go in later and clean it up more using more specialised tools like Photoshop. In many circumstances, the photo wouldn't be as busy as the one I tested on, so it's probably going to do a pretty good job.
Tools you'd expect to see are there too like the ability to adjust curves, brightness, contrast, exposure, auto levels, etc. It caters for both the novice, and people wanting to be a little more intricate in their photo retouching. It also reads RAW photo's from the D70 which is an added bonus.
It's got multiple effects you can apply such as converting to black and white, which seems to do a great job in my opinion.
You can also do panarama's using the software amongst other things. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for how good it is. You also have the bility to make a story using fade in effects like Proshow, as well as a flipbook type album, but I haven't played with that so I again can't vouch for what they're like.
Many of the options you'll find in the editor are what you'd expect to see in Photoshop, so if you're used to Photoshop, but want to spend a little less time playing, it's probably worth having a look at this.
The Library is pretty good. I tend to have a bit of a problem keeping track of my photo's. Usually, that's not the software's fault, but rather my un-organised nature. The Library is very easy to use. The GUI is very straight forward, and you can scan your directories, hard drive, etc for the photo's on your hard drive. It then builds a thumbnail gallery of all the photos. It tends to be quite slow even on my AMD 2100+ with a gig of ram, but it seems a lot more responsive to other tasks than I found with the Photoshop CS2 Bridge which I've disabled all together. Once the gallery of thumbnails has been built, it's nice and quick. Even if you close the program and run it again later, it has the images, so it doesn't have to rebuild it.
The Library also allows you to assign a 1-5 star rating system to your photo's, as well as comments, and labels also known as categories, so at the click of a button later, you can say you want to look at just 5 star photo's, or photo's of your dog, etc. You can add your own categories, and delete the ones that it defaults to.
Conclusion
-------------
The above review only tells you about the few features I've played with. There are numerous features I haven't played with, but my impressions for this software is so far pretty good. If you're after some software to keep track of your photo's, and also cut down on your Post Processing of your photo's all in the one solution, and your not a perfectionist, then this software seems to be pretty damn good in my opinion, and I'm not a Microsoft fanboi, so that's saying something. The ease of use, gui, and feature set is really good, and the ability to easily touch up blemishes, scratches, pimples, and other imperfections from photo's is just brilliant. Perfectionists can also use this software because they can start with the tools using this software, and then polish off the post processing with Photoshop where you have more finer control.
If I was to rate this software from 1 to 10 where 10 is the best I would rate it as follows.
Ease of Use - 9/10
Features - 8/10
Quality - 8/10
I hope this has been a useful mini review.
Having used the previous version of Digital Image Suite, I figured it wouldn't be too bad, so I thought i'd give it a burl.
There are a lot of features I haven't used yet, so this review isn't a complete review of the software.. just the features i've tried, hence the mini review.
The software actually has two programs. The first is the Editor, which you use to perfect your photo's, and the second is the library for keeping track of your photos.
The Editor has some nice features. You can get rid of winkles, dust, blemishes, pimples, scratches and the like just by clicking on the pimple etc in question. You can't get any easier than that. I tried it on a photo of myself where my face had quite a few rashes from my Excema, and within a couple of minutes, I looked like Tom Cruise.. oh wait.. sorry.. wrong program
Seriously, within a couple of minutes, my face looked pretty damn good. I know that can be debated My only minor concern was when using the tool for removing spots and blemishes. As far as I could tell, there was no way of making the brush size smaller for small areas, however, I don't think this would be too much of a problem in normal practice. It was just an observation I made at the time. Bare in mind, this isn't a Photoshop replacement, but rather an additional tool for cutting down on your PP for common tasks.
It also has a feature for removal of objects. I tried it on a pot plant in a busy photo and while it did a pretty admerable job, it wasn't perfect, but really, if you think about it, I don't think any software would do it perfectly. It can be a good start, and then you can go in later and clean it up more using more specialised tools like Photoshop. In many circumstances, the photo wouldn't be as busy as the one I tested on, so it's probably going to do a pretty good job.
Tools you'd expect to see are there too like the ability to adjust curves, brightness, contrast, exposure, auto levels, etc. It caters for both the novice, and people wanting to be a little more intricate in their photo retouching. It also reads RAW photo's from the D70 which is an added bonus.
It's got multiple effects you can apply such as converting to black and white, which seems to do a great job in my opinion.
You can also do panarama's using the software amongst other things. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for how good it is. You also have the bility to make a story using fade in effects like Proshow, as well as a flipbook type album, but I haven't played with that so I again can't vouch for what they're like.
Many of the options you'll find in the editor are what you'd expect to see in Photoshop, so if you're used to Photoshop, but want to spend a little less time playing, it's probably worth having a look at this.
The Library is pretty good. I tend to have a bit of a problem keeping track of my photo's. Usually, that's not the software's fault, but rather my un-organised nature. The Library is very easy to use. The GUI is very straight forward, and you can scan your directories, hard drive, etc for the photo's on your hard drive. It then builds a thumbnail gallery of all the photos. It tends to be quite slow even on my AMD 2100+ with a gig of ram, but it seems a lot more responsive to other tasks than I found with the Photoshop CS2 Bridge which I've disabled all together. Once the gallery of thumbnails has been built, it's nice and quick. Even if you close the program and run it again later, it has the images, so it doesn't have to rebuild it.
The Library also allows you to assign a 1-5 star rating system to your photo's, as well as comments, and labels also known as categories, so at the click of a button later, you can say you want to look at just 5 star photo's, or photo's of your dog, etc. You can add your own categories, and delete the ones that it defaults to.
Conclusion
-------------
The above review only tells you about the few features I've played with. There are numerous features I haven't played with, but my impressions for this software is so far pretty good. If you're after some software to keep track of your photo's, and also cut down on your Post Processing of your photo's all in the one solution, and your not a perfectionist, then this software seems to be pretty damn good in my opinion, and I'm not a Microsoft fanboi, so that's saying something. The ease of use, gui, and feature set is really good, and the ability to easily touch up blemishes, scratches, pimples, and other imperfections from photo's is just brilliant. Perfectionists can also use this software because they can start with the tools using this software, and then polish off the post processing with Photoshop where you have more finer control.
If I was to rate this software from 1 to 10 where 10 is the best I would rate it as follows.
Ease of Use - 9/10
Features - 8/10
Quality - 8/10
I hope this has been a useful mini review.