14 DAY TRIAL // What can you do to give a photo a personal touch? Framing it would be a good idea, but if you're dealing with digital images things might get a bit complicated as you have to print them and then add a matching frame. But digital pictures can be adorned with matching frames.
The product costs $28.99, and allows full testing of the application for a period of 30 days. There is absolutely no restriction during this time, so you can test it as thoroughly as you want.
MonkeyPhoto gives the user the possibility of creating greeting cards or simply embellishing the images on the computer with a simple touch of the mouse. The multitude of frames available for practically every occasion are a good twist to add to your photo album.
Looking at the interface, you can clearly see that the developer had one goal during development: easy manipulation of the images and handling of the frames. The effort for adding this or that frame is minimum for the user.
The main part of the application is occupied by the image itself and all the frame options are running down in the right hand part of the application. These are organized in tabs (depending on the occasion they can be used for) and there are more than 100 of them available. Not all of them are fancy and the downfall is that none of them has a name.
Right under the image there are the effect controls. Don't get any ideas, as there are only three ways to customize your image and make it a bit more special. You can adjust brightness, add sepia effect or turn it into black and white. These are the only "tweaks" you can do. And the undo button will return the picture to its initial state. Unfortunately, you cannot go back step by step and if you go a step too far with one effect the only way to correct the picture is revert it to its original state and start all over again.
MonkeyPhoto seems to be incapable of opening only one image directly from the application as it can open only entire folders. There is a way to open just one picture in the software, and that is to associate the image format with MonkeyPhoto or use Open With option in the Explorer's context menu.
But once you have included an entire directory in MonkeyPhoto, working with the pictures is easy. The additional controls available let you browse the items, rotate them 90 degrees at a time, or delete them. Careful with "delete" button because the item will be eliminated not only from the application but from your hard disk as well.
Although the application can open various image formats (PNG, JPG, ICO, BMP) saving the picture is made under only one format: JPG. Now that's not a pretty thing to do considering that the user has no word to say for the conversion of the file as this is done automatically.
A big disadvantage of the application is that it will resize your picture to fit the frames. That means that no matter the size of your image, it'll be reduced to 400x300. So you should only play with pictures close to this size in order not to lose too much of it.
Further options in the left hand column of the application permit sending them via Microsoft's email client. Although MonkeyPhoto did not benefit from an update for a long time, it supports Vista's Windows Mail with absolutely no problem and on Business edition of Vista there were no notable issues except that it crashed one time when I tried to delete an image.
Out of the numerous frames available, a couple of them are looking really great and I suggest you to take a look in tab number four and check the broken glass effect or those in tab number six, at the bottom. There are some cool water effects there that deserve having a look at. For more conservative elements to dress up your photos, tab number seven is a good location. The frames here are simple and all they consist of is a colored border.
The Good
The user can send the output result directly to printer in case they want it on paper. Emailing is also an alternative of sharing the results.
There are plenty of frames to choose from and some of them are quite good looking. Aside from frames you can add effects like sepia or black and white.
The Bad
The images are resized to fit the frame and the result can be saved only in JPG format. The user cannot control the file conversion in any way.
There are only two effects available and an image enhancer that only adds brightness to the image. Sepia is not too good either. Actually, I think this is the worst sepia effect I have ever seen (though in some cases it looks pretty good).
MonkeyPhoto cannot import only images from folders and if you decide to eliminate one item in the photo strip at the bottom of the window the element will be erased from the hard drive as well.
The Truth
When it comes to the price, the application is overrated. There is no justification for the approximately $30 on the price tag.
Other than that, the application is super easy to handle and the video tutorial embedded in the Help menu reveals all the "tricks" of the program.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
