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Apps to Organize Your Digital PhotosHere's an overview of three new programs that promise easier image management.Lincoln Spector, special to PC World
While you were frolicking in the sun and sand this summer--and stacking up the digital photos--three software companies were working hard for you. Greenstreet, OnTheGoSoft, and Preclick have introduced new programs to organize photos, back them up, and turn them into albums.
All three companies are offering free, full-featured demos that allow you to check them out before you buying anything. But let me save you the trouble: I took a look at Greenstreet's $30 Digital Photo Album Deluxe, OnTheGoSoft's $20 Photo Backup, and Preclick's Preclick Photo Organizer, which is available in separate free and $20 editions.
Preclick Photo Organizer--even in its limited (and gratis) Silver edition--is one terrific program. Photo Backup is useful if you don't back up your photos even though you know you should, or if you want to manage a huge collection of photo CDs. But Digital Photo Album Deluxe isn't worth its comparatively high price.
Preclick: Little Program, Big Job
Preclick Gold Photo OrganizerThe free, downloadable Preclick Silver Photo Organizer installation program is so small it could fit on a floppy disk. It's an amazingly easy tool for organizing and even editing your photos. I looked at Preclick Silver and at Preclick Gold 2.5.
At bottom, the program is not so much an editor as an auto- corrector. Aside from handling basic rotating and cropping, it lets you fix red-eye and bad exposure problems with one or two clicks. You don't get the kind of control you would with a full-featured image editor like Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, but you don't always need it. I obtained better red-eye results with two clicks in Preclick than...