Photo software

[Sinbad Returns]

Hi all.

Recently got a Sony P12 and have taken a few shots.  Sadly none of the underwater ones were worth saving but guess that gives me an excuse for the next holiday!

Anyway, I want some software that will download the images from the camera, let me play with them (drop, rotate, effects, etc), put them into albums, then burn them onto a CD in a format easily read by another PC.  And it mustnt cost loads.  Any suggestions???  Please???

The packaged Sony software purports to do the above but I have found it to be quite frustrating, not least as it is very slow and refuses to recognise my otherwise fully functional CD writer.

Any ideas anyone?

Cheers,

Paul

[gblades2]

Paint Shop Pro is very good and comes with drivers for many cameras. Most modern cameras have USB interfaces so just look like a hard disk when you connect them so you don't need any special software for these.

I also use software called Thumbs Plus which catalogues pictures, produces catalogues and web pages etc... It has lots of editing features aswell. For more details visit their website. The cost is a very reasonable $50 and you can download a demo to try it out.

[tiewrapdiver]

I'd also recommend getting Paint Shop Pro, its a very powerful package but fairly easy to use, especialy jsut for cropping, rotating etc. I'd download it off Kazaa for nothing though, but i'm naughty.

CAn i ask how you get on with your Sony housing, i've jsut ordered the one for my P9 for the Red Sea later this month. Give my any good points, bad points or handy hints. This will be my first time taking photos underwater and i dont really know what i'm doing.

Cheers

[Sinbad Returns]

Sounds like PaintShop is the winner.

Regarding the housing, there is not much I can say.  The first time mucking about with the grease and o-ring took me a while, but after a few goes it only took a minute.  Take some cotton buds with you for clearing the salt and muck out of the o-ring slot, especially if you can get some that wont leave fibres.  I also had some lens tissues which were handy to clear the port of suncream and other stuff that my girlfriend seemed intent on smearing on it.

The housing plus camera sinks in water, so I put a lanyard (an extendable/retractable one) on the casing and clipped it to my BCD so I didnt have to worry about dropping it (which came in handy as I did let go of it at one point!).

Other than that all I can say is good luck.  My land pictures came out nicely, but the in-water ones sucked!  Guess more practice is in order.

Paul

[Angus]

The best way I have found of downloading the pictures from a card is via a card reader.  You can pick up the ones which do 6 different types of cards for around £20 and they make life very easy.  You just drag and drop like you would files within Windows etc.  As well as been convenient it saves on the camera batteries as it's powered via the USB cables.

Once the pics are on your PC there should be no problems burniong them to CD etc as they are just treated like any other jpeg.

I use a mixture of Photosuite and PhotoShop for 'playing' with the pics although wouldn't particulary recommend either to be honest!