Entered CNET Catalog: 04/14/2004
SKU: 2123539
Manufacturer: Sonic Solutions
Manufacturer description
Professional photo editing made easy. Instantly correct common photo problems and transform ordinary photos into personal masterpieces. Create stunning projects like calendars or holiday cards with point-and-click ease. Preserve a lifetime of precious memories on CD and share them in the comfort of your living room. The PhotoSuite 7 Platinum - Simply Picture Perfect.CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 04/28/2005
The documentation claims that the easiest way to approach the suite is by using the home page that appears when you click the PhotoSuite icon. From here, you can choose among the various tasks: import, edit, print, e-mail, capture, create labels or projects, offload to removable media, and access online services. Frankly, we found the panel poorly designed. The functions seem arbitrarily assorted into random categories. For example, the capture utility is in the Tools list, but the media manager is listed under Applications. Our novice guinea pig was just befuddled by the disorganization ("Do I want to use the Import Photos, E-Mail Photos, or Projects?"), and after an hour spent trying to e-mail an image that resided on his digital camera, he surrendered.
Some programs have interfaces that need a good makeover, but the tools are so powerful that you accept some goofiness. This is not one of those programs. Let's take the "get the image from the camera and e-mail it" scenario. With a program such as Canon's ZoomBrowser, you click the Acquire Images button, select the photo you want, click the Email Images button, and fill in the blanks. We timed the process from beginning to end: 11 seconds. In PhotoSuite, you first click Import Photos and wait for the component to load (15 seconds). Then you wait to select your input device and wait--and wait and wait some more--for the thumbnails to appear. Unfortunately, all we got were big placeholders instead of thumbnails, until we deleted all but six images from the media card.
After PhotoSuite downloads the images, it asks what you want to do next. Well, e-mail isn't one of the choices--you have to return to the home page or load the PhotoSuite component. Then you hunt for your image, add it to the main window, click Next, make some more choices, click some more, and finish. Oops--we forgot to open our e-mail program first! Back to the home page to do it all over again. You get the idea.
After this depressing experience, we plodded through the other modules. PhotoSuite has to load the relevant component each time you want to do something, so there is an agonizing sense of getting nowhere fast.
If you're looking for a good set of editing tools, you probably won't be too unhappy with PhotoSuite 7.0. You can autofix, crop, rotate, fix red-eye, and add text in the basic mode and access more advanced tools by clicking the Show All Features button. Here, you'll find features for adding drop shadows, fixing wrinkles, assembling photo collages, creating cutouts and masks, and adjusting image quality. The tools are pretty rudimentary and require you to plow through a bunch of textual explanations so that you can select the appropriate choice.
The image-editing tools in PhotoSuite are adequate for simple editing tasks.
If you enjoy projects, PhotoSuite offers a good selection: collage, album, card, gift tag, magazine cover, postcard, and poster. By the way, don't try to click the Create Greeting Card on the home page--PhotoSuite will freeze. You have to access this feature through the Projects link.
If you want to make a CD label, you have to load a different module, but it's actually the best part of this suite: it has a straightforward interface, attractive templates, and a rich feature set. You can scan in an image to add to the label, have LabelMaker autofill the project by looking up information online, and whiz through the entire process using the Instant Label Creator wizard.
The label creator is a truly excellent program: fast, flexible, and intelligent.
On-Line Services connects to the Roxio online shopping page (powered by Snapfish). From here, you can upload and share images and order prints. This service features unlimited online photo storage so that your friends and family and family can view your pics. If you sign up, your first 20 prints are free.
When we tried to run the slide show, video CD, and DVD builder modules, we were informed that our display adapter doesn't fully support DirectX 9.0 3D features. To this we say, "So what?" We just finished reviewing 13 other image-editing/organizing packages, and not a single one had any trouble producing a slide show, a DVD, or a video CD. We wouldn't have minded so much if the program hadn't hung trying to load the component after displaying the error message.
We always try to find some aspect of a program that makes it worth purchasing, but in this case, we're stumped. The label creator is very nice, but the suite is overpriced at $29.95--even freeware such as IrfanView works better than PhotoSuite. If you're looking for a simple and inexpensive image-editing/management program, try SimpleStar/Nero PhotoShow Elite, Ulead PhotoImpact, or Adobe Photoshop Album.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5
User Rating: 
3/10
Poor product....poorer customer service
Pros: Easy to create photo CDs
Cons: Not easy to navigate....often freezes
Review:
For the money, this is not a very good product. I've used Roxio PhotoSuite for three years now, but I'm moving on. It is not easy to navigate (even after 3 years!) and the product often freezes in the middle of a project.
Attempting to find a live person via customer service "contact" link is an exercise in futility!
Attempting to find a live person via customer service "contact" link is an exercise in futility!
User Rating: 
2/10
This program really sucks
Pros: It has a fair bit of functionality
Cons: Full of bugs and hard to navigate
Review:
I can't believe I went looking for this because we have been using Version 4 for so long and find it so good. They seem to have forgotten everything they knew about creating software. The frustrations of using this buggy product outweigh the advantage. It doesn't even save properly after using paint. It really sucks.
User Rating: 
6/10
Decent enough when used with Easy Media Creator 7
Pros: Panning, zooming, easy transitions
Cons: 'DVD Builder' less than friendly
Review:
Taken as a package with Easy Media Creator 7, or 7.5 which comes with third party Cineplayer and Sonic's back up app but with which you'll likely encounter video creation issues, Photosuite 7 works pretty good. Once you get over a significant learning hump, it lets you do some neat things to create slide shows, but you'll need to contend with Sonic-Roxio's antiquated DVD Builder to put your work onto a DVD or CD. In general it's a better value to buy the whole Easy Media Creator Suite at a discount which will also give you the stuff associated with burning music, creating MP3s, putting files on CD or DVD and backing-up or creating videos. However, if you need something with a lot of photo editing and organizing features you probably would do better with some of the more dedicated (and higher priced) apps.
User Rating: 2/10
Ain't worth the powder to blow it up
Pros: No positive I could think of
Cons: A bagful of junks
Review:
Not only the programs are useless, they tried very hard to stop the rebate like they promised. So far, I only got twenty bucks back, out of forty they promised.
I shelved it and bought Nero Ultra. Niro is a much better program.
I shelved it and bought Nero Ultra. Niro is a much better program.
User Rating: 3/10
not worth the money
Pros: cd/dvd labels
Cons: confusing and does not work
Review:
There are much better apps available. HD Picture Album 2005 (Release 5) is free and is my favorite.
