Software contd.

Canon ZoomBrowser EX 4.1

ZoomBrowser is a photo file transfer / browsing / organization / manipulation / printing application with an easy to use interface and a unique method of displaying folders of images. ZoomBrowser can be used as a traditional thumbnail browser or when switched into the View mode of 'Zoom Mode' it displays sub-folders of images as smaller grouped thumbnails.

Below you can see the main browsing window and task list to the left, this provides the following functions:

• Camera & Memory Card
  • Browse & Download Images
  • Upload Images
  • My Camera Settings
  • Remote Shooting (launches Remote Capture)
• Print
  • Layout Print
  • Index Print
• View & Modify
  • View as a Slide Show
  • Edit Image
  • Stitch Photos (launches PhotoStitch)
  • Process RAW Images (launches File Viewer Utility)
• Internet
  • Email images
  • European users get access to the CANON iMAGE GATEWAY service (100 MB online image storage / sharing)

Selected images can be viewed, rotated, deleted or moved to other folders as well as the selection of tasks on the left. You can also view properties for an image (including exposure info).

Double-click on an image (or select Edit Image from the View & Modify menu) to display the image in its own window along with several manipulation controls such as color, brightness and contrast.

Canon RemoteCapture

Remote Capture allows you to remotely control the camera from your PC via the supplied USB cable. All camera settings can be made through the software and images are transferred back to the computer as they are taken (and stored on the PC's hard disk). After starting the application it will connect to the camera and display two windows, the Shooting window (for controlling the camera and taking the shot) and the Save window which shows a history of shots taken as well as a histogram view.

Save & Shooting windows

In normal operation you would have the save and shooting windows side by side. The Save window provides an instant view of the last image shot as well as a 'film strip' of previous frames. The currently selected image on the film strip (normally the last image) is shown as a larger preview along with a histogram and exposure information.

The Shooting window provides the interface to camera settings as well as the actual Release button itself. Expanding the window to show 'Detail settings' gives you five tabs of settings as well as a preview of the shot ('Test Shot') which is useful for checking framing. You can change almost every setting on the camera. Note that as well as taking shots by pressing the 'Release' button Remote Capture can be set up to take images using an Interval Timer (Time-lapse) or a single shot after a certain amount of time.

Below is an animation of the five settings tabs on the Shooting window.

Clicking on 'View' from the Save window displays the image in a larger single image viewer where the image can be examined at different zoom levels.

Canon PhotoRecord

PhotoRecord can be thought of as an application for creating, managing, viewing and printing of 'virtual photo albums'. Each album can contain several pages and you simply create an album by 'Fetching' images into it. These images are then automatically laid out on pages (or you can manually place them). You can quickly change the layout of each individual page and even add effects such as captions and clipart. PhotoRecord fully supports ExifPrint (EXIF 2.2), however it requires a Canon EXIF Print driver for output.

Below is the main window with an example album containing seven images arranged across three pages. The column of buttons down the left edge of each page indicates different preprogrammed layouts, click on one to change the layout of that page. The Control Panel allows you to control the layout and sizing of the Album overall as well as Fetching new images into it and printing.

You can also edit images in the album, simply double click on an image, from here you can edit / crop the image, rotate it and choose whether to allow automatic ExifPrint correction (based on EXIF 2.2 header information from the image file).