Zalbum

Whether you want to bundle all your vacation photos in a single album, or to create a catalog for some commercial products, a computer application can greatly help in this regard. A suitable example is Zalbum, providing the right options for you to easily select pictures you want to include, edit them, and export in a web format.

A neat advantage is that you don’t even have to install the application on your computer to make it work, because clever programming made it work without any registry dependencies, thus keeping the target computer clean. Another consequence is that you can deploy it on a USB flash drive to use on the go.

In terms of visuals, the application looks and feels rough around the edges, even though the interface is structured with different tabs for its multiple areas, and navigation panes let you easily access content of interest. Options, fields, and other elements are all cluttered together, making some functions difficult to identify or understand. On the other hand, there are several themes to choose from.

One of the first steps is to select the image files you want to bundle in the album. This is easily done by selecting a folder, with the application automatically letting you browse through all detected pictures using a dedicated navigation pane.

When this is done, Zalbum gives you the possibility to add extra details in the annotate tab. General editing options can also be used to rotate the picture, or configure the way it appears in the album index.

Moving to the create tab lets you easily export the final product, which is a HTML file you can then include in your web projects. However, little to no variety in customization options are put at your disposal, with the album being an indexed display of photos, with options to load them individually, go back, and select others.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Zalbum comes with good intentions and provides enough options to create a simple web album out of your collection of pictures. The overall process runs smooth, and it only takes a little while to get your hands on the result, but you might need a bit of patience to handle the rough interface.