Boston Globe (9/23/2002)

By Michelle Johnson, 9/23/2002

One of the coolest things about digital photography is immediate gratification. You can snap a photo, download it to your computer, and zip it off via e-mail to friends and family in minutes.

As quality has gone up and prices have dropped, interest in digital cameras is on the rise. So it's not surprising that online photo-sharing services have seen a bump in popularity, too. InfoTrends Research Group, a Boston-based market firm that tracks the digital imaging industry, estimates that 15 million people will have shared snapshots online by the end of the year, up from 11.3 million last year.

Photo-sharing sites such as ofoto.com, snapfish.com, and shutterfly.com offer a similar lineup of products and services: free upload and storage of your digital pictures, online slide shows that you can create and share with others, hard-copy prints and enlargements, photo frames, and other accessories for sale.

While the slide-show features work great on most of these sites, they're fairly basic. If you're looking to create something with a little more pizazz, maybe with graphics, music and animation, the choices are more limited.

PhotoParade.com is one site that's focused on offering products and tools that turn even the most artistically challenged types into multimedia wizards. Unlike other photo sites, which offer slide show setup for free, you'll have to pay to play here.

You start by purchasing and downloading PhotoParade Maker, available in Standard ($19.95), Premium ($29.95), and Super ($39.99) editions. The program comes with built-in music and graphical themes. Simply add your photos and you've got instant multimedia. The Super edition comes with 41 themes, ranging from holidays to weddings, and seasonal albums, as well as one that puts your mug shots onto a silent movie screen.

Using the program is ridiculously easy. I was able to whip out a spiffy-looking ''PhotoParade'' in about five minutes by importing photos from my hard drive onto a ''gallery page.'' You drag and drop to change the order they appear in, add titles and captions, and apply a theme that includes graphics, music, and animation.

The program includes rudimentary tools that let you crop, adjust contrast, brightness, and sharpness, and fix dreaded red-eye problems. But be aware that this is no full-featured photo editing program. Don't expect to do any major tweaking of bad exposures.

Each theme comes with its own music, but you can substitute your own MP3 or MIDI files and also record your own narration.

The themes run the gamut from hokey to tasteful. Some, such as one titled ''Tracer,'' might even work for cash-strapped small business owners or nonprofit groups looking to create an animated presentation on the cheap.

Once you're done creating, you upload it all to PhotoParade and send e-mail inviting everyone to take a look. The e-mail contains a link to your PhotoParade, and recipients will need to download a free player to watch.

And speaking of the player, make sure to download it when you download PhotoParade Maker. I was miffed to find that I could not view my first creation immediately because I hadn't downloaded and installed the player. It's odd that it's not included with the Maker download.

In fact, it's strange that Natick-based Callisto, producer of PhotoParade, has chosen to slice and dice the product into so many pieces: PhotoParade Maker, Photo Browser ($29.99), Photo Viewer ($12.99), Photo E-mailer ($9.99), and the PhotoParade Player (free and ''Plus'' version for $6.99).

It's a very confusing lineup. Read the descriptions carefully before you order. It would be nice if the product was offered as one integrated package that contains all the features for one price.

PhotoParade.com is easy to peruse. You'll find more detailed information about the products, as well as troubleshooting tips under the support link at the bottom of the home page.

PhotoMaker and most of the other components are available for Windows or Mac computers. The exception is the Photo Browser, which is Windows-only.

Despite some minor short-comings, and the piecemeal presentation of the program's various components, Photoparade is worth the price and the download(s).

Michelle Johnson is a freelance writer. She can be reached at mijohn@mail-me.com.

This story ran on page C4 of the Boston Globe on 9/23/2002.

© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.