Needs a LOT of work. Too much, really. Not ready for the marketplace.

I tested the software for a half hour on a full-frame 21-megapixel butterfly JPEG. I had 3 force quits and many lock-ups during the session. Many of the effects enlarged the image so only the butterflys wing tips were visible. Sort of an automatic crop you cant control.

The software INSISTS on displaying a horizontal image. It will turn a vertical image into a horizontal one with no rotation controls.

There are many "text assisted" effects using the words "Hello World". Trouble is, there is no way I could find to change the text! Font? Yes. Font size? Yes. Text? No. Useless. To use this feature you must really love the words, "Hello World". If you are editing a vertical picture, the text is horizontal anyhow. Useless.

The software only allows you to save as JPEG. No TIFF or anything else. Many pictures saved themselves as blank, empty white images or images that greatly differed from the image you thought you were saving. For instance, some effects have a black or dark tonal background which looks pretty good. But when you save the image the background is light. Many of the effects are animated with a pause and resume button provided to control the "action". To get an effect you like before saving, you have to hit the PAUSE button at exactly the correct moment or play with the slider bars to slow it down and try to hit the pause button again. Kinda like Russian roulette. The pause and resume buttons are separate. So you have to click on the resume button, then reposition the mopuse and click on the pause button. Oops -- not fast enough! Resume and start over again. With this kind of hit-or-miss methodology, the pause and resume buttons should be a toggle. Frustrating.

Did I mention the 400 "effects" are selected by paging through "PREVIOUS" and "NEXT" buttons (see the image above) which display the effects 4 at a time? That if you like a particular effect you must make a note of the page number plus the effects title because there is no search function or index or category available to return to it later, which may mean paging through 100 "NEXT" button clicks and a couple of force quits along the way to find what youre looking for.

STAY AWAY from this app until a serious bug session and some serious testing by the author(s) has been completed. Which is a shame, because SOME of the effects are good ones.

Simply Tim about Photo Effects