Kodak EasyShare Software - Version 2.1.1 for Windows

Reviewed by Jerry Marino, The Marino Group, gem@marinogroup.com

Now that you have that digital camera, what are you going to do with all those pictures you’ve been taking? Kodak has an answer with their free EasyShare software. This new program lets you download digital photos to your computer and then improve, enhance and refine them for printing, sharing or just viewing in a slide show.  

The software loads easily from a self-installing CD. Once you’re up and running the first thing the program does is catalog all the digital images in the “My Pictures” and “Kodak Pictures” folders. It doesn’t move them but gives you access to them from the catalog. It may be worth storing all your images in those folders if you’re going to rely on this to help you manage your photos. You can also manually catalog photos stored in other directories. However, for optimal use of the EasyShare software, all your digital photos need to be stored in either Windows’ My Pictures or the “Kodak Pictures” directories.

 One of the helpful features of the software is that you can organize the photos in several ways, so you’re not overwhelmed with sorting through all your photos at once. You can view them by the last acquired, by date, by caption, or by keywords. When you get them in view there are several ways to view and select photos. The display shows photos one at a time, in thumbnails by the groups you set up, in a table with all the photo’s details associated with it. These are details like date taken, keyword or caption, the date “acquired” (moved into the catalog) and when modified and photo format (.jpg, .gif, etc.) In addition you select the group you want to work with in a similar way. Select the entire collection, by date, by keyword, by protected pictures (those you “protect” so they are not accidentally deleted) or by the last date acquired. I prefer thumbnails. From that view I can easily select the ones I want to work on, then start enhancing and improving the images.

 The software has a range of easy to use commands to allow you to improve or enhance an image. After you call up the image, click on “Edit” and you’re presented with a variety of editing tools. The functions are easy to use and most will make a difference. Many of the common tasks are intuitive and accessed through drop down lists in each process, but you can also customize and perform more advanced edits if you’re experienced.

 You can crop, brighten, change contrast, correct for red eye, add “fun” effects like black and white, sepia, coloring book outline or cartoon effects, rotate the photo clockwise or counter clockwise or display the images in a full-screen slide show. You can accept or cancel any changes before you save the photo and keep same name or give it a new one. The tools break out as follows.

 The “Crop” tool gives you pre-formatted cropping options for standard photo sizes—3x5, 4x6, 5x7, etc.—but also provides a custom option so you can crop and create an image to any specific size. The “Redeye” choice provides a moveable crosshair to place (with your mouse) on top of the “red eyes” in your photo. Place and click, then accept or cancel presto you have “normal” eyes.

 The “Enhance” choice baffled me. When I choose the “Enhance” command, I saw a “before” and “after” view of the image. Both views looked the same to me. Maybe my photos were correctly exposed so that he program couldn’t enhance them much.   You may note more of a range when you enhance yours.

 The “Brightness/Contrast” selection provides two sliders for adjustments—one for brightness and one for contrast. You can move either to change the brightness or contrast for your photo. As in other choices, there’s a “before” image so you can compare and decide if you want to accept or cancel your adjustments. This seems to be an effective way to improve your image just like the “Exposure” selection. Choose “Exposure” and you also have a slider to control adjustments. It let’s you increase or decrease the photo’s exposure setting. Keep in mind that whatever change you make you must make to the entire photo. You can’t isolate sections and work on those exclusively.

 If you want to go crazy and really change your image try the “Fun Effects” button. You can change the photo to black and white, give it sepia tone effects, make a coloring book outline (line art) of the images, colorize it with cartoon effects, or show it through a fish eye lens. These really give you a range of playful options for your editing pleasure. There is also a “Rotate” button to rotate the photo to the orientation you prefer. It’s an effective way to reposition landscape photos to print in portrait mode and vice versa. The final editing choice “Zoom” let's you zoom in or out of the photo to increase or decrease the image. The zoom-in is limited in how much smaller you can make the photo but the zoom-out seems to have a wider range of adjustment. The final selection in editing mode is the “Help” button. Use it when all else fails.

 EasyShare lets you display your photos in slide show mode and the effect is pretty dramatic. Select the photos you want to display, select “Slide Show” and the program cycles through your selection—in a full screen display—in either automatic or manual mode.

 When you have your photos looking spiffy EasyShare has many ways to share them to show the world what a good photographer you are. It’s easy to email the photos to any number of recipients. Call up the email command and you’re presented with an email form to address that will send a message with your photos. You can add email addresses manually or from the addresses in the program’s address book. Unfortunately you can’t access other address books located on your computer..

 You can also print your photo with a local or networked printer or order prints online. When you print locally (your printer) you can select the size and type of paper you have available and what size you’d like your photos to print. There is a plethora of layouts and several paper sizes to choose from but only three choices for paper types —and two are Kodak photo papers.

 Kodak makes it easy order prints from online photo services—unfortunately the only photo service that automatically uploads images from the program is—you guessed it—the Kodak EasyShare print service..It requires  an extra step to upload photos to other services. This option does allow you to check prices and access to other services in your area, if you’re not inclined to use the “in house” Kodak service. Once you set up a photo printing service you can continue to use it without having to go through the set up all over again. This is a nice feature that will save you time and make it more likely that you will get those photos printed.

 In general, this program should help the beginner to intermediate photographer catalog and load photos, improve and enhance them (in a limited but still effective way) and then share them with others. And the price is right since it can be downloaded free at www.Kodak.com/go/easyshare.