Photos are a huge part of our lives, and the digital cameras that have dominated the market since the early 2000s have really given users the opportunity to edit and quickly share our photos with almost anyone regardless of their location.
Because many people, including myself, tend to overdo it and take far more photos than needed, digital slideshows have become increasingly more popular. But while the concept seems so simple, many people who would like to create a slideshow end up being lost in the creation process.
FXFoto 6, a photo editing application and advanced slideshow application, is attempting to change that. The company offers a few versions of the software, but I decided to stick with the free standard edition for the purposes of this review.
Starting with the installation, the process went exceptionally well. After about a minute and a half the program was up and running. I first tried to import photos, which wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. The program gives users the ability to import folders; however, I couldn’t seem to get that to work. When using the control key to try to import multiple photos simultaneously, the program would only select one photo at a time, which was a major negative.
After the tedious and frustrating import process, I decided to try out the built-in photo editor to touch up my pictures and remove some red eye off of the subjects. I found the editing process to be the best feature of the application. Although Photoshop obviously blows it out of the water, the basic photo editing that FxFoto 6 provides works. But one disappointment is the lack of options such as brightness and contrast adjustment.
As for the slideshows themselves, I was not impressed at all. The user interface is unorganized, unappealing and poorly designed. I can’t see how any basic user or even a slightly more skilled user could figure out how to effectively produce slideshows with this program.
On top of the aforementioned downsides, the company does not support the Macintosh platform.
Personally, I would stay away from FxFoto 6. As an alternative, the Web site Photobucket (http://photobucket.com) offers a great slideshow creator and powerful image editing tools all for free. Users can also take advantage of online Web hosting so they can share the slideshow they just created with friends and family.
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