14 DAY TRIAL // As I've said before and I'll keep saying, I am not crazy about image management...or at least not yet, of course. Regardless of my personal opinion, I find it rather interesting to review photo managers, and to me, it seems that this is one of the ways of the future - image viewers with as many management features as possible included, and not only that. Some editing functions won't harm anyone, so let's add those to the pot, too. Now, the only problem left is to find a new program that can do all that - viewing, management and editing.
The name of my find is Smart Pix Manager, its latest version is 9.01, and I got my hands on a trial version, of course. This trial can be used freely for 45 days, but you'll have to register or remove the program from your computer after that. The price of the program is 37.50$, and I can't say I am crazy about that, because the way I see things, IrfanView is one of the best choices available, and also free, but that's my opinion, and Smart Pix Manager still needs to be explored. Its installation kit has 2.9MB in size, and you shouldn't have problems while running the setup program, just pay attention to the information on the screen when choosing the initial settings. Let's suppose you are already past that point and move on to the next level: interface and features, as usual.
Since I mentioned IrfanView earlier, I must be honest until the end and say that I am not crazy at all about its interface, because that's not what I look when choosing an image viewer. What I need is ease of use, speed, image display quality and as many useful features as possible (awarding ratings to your pictures can be useful for some people, but for me, it's just a waste of time).
OK, this is what I think about IrfanView, and Smart Pix Manager is not far from that at all. What I see here is a highly customizable interface, well organized and easy enough to use, but I think that users will need a little study before using this program's full potential. I won't lie to you, I feel much better with IrfanView, and at first sight, I thought that this is yet another image viewer with a lot of features and a completely messed up interface, but the reality is quite different.
When looking at this program's supported files list, things got a lot better! Just think about this - images, videos, sound, text, HTML files or Adobe Acrobat and Office formats. The full list can be found inside the excellent documentation that comes with the program, and so I get to grant a big white ball to this program for its file support before moving on...
The management part of this program is well developed. Smart Pix Manager allows you to add descriptions and custom fields to your files and use them for easing the search process, but it doesn't stop here. The database of this program is encrypted and can store even entire files to help you stay on the safe side. Each image can have keywords associated to it, but it goes beyond just images. MP3 and WMA tags can be changed easily and used for finding the music files you are looking for.
Smart Pix Manager can burn your slideshows to CD/DVD, remove red eye effect, create web galleries, browse files within ZIP archives and more. There's only one word to say before moving on to the conclusions: impressive!
The Good
Smart Pix Manager is a full featured application that won't stop surprising you for a couple of days, or maybe more. Its trial period of 45 days should be enough for everybody to discover this excellent program, and its comprehensive documentation can help you a lot with this task.
The Bad
I can only have one request from the next versions of this program: keep it simple, guys! I am quite experienced with such programs, but I must admit I feel a bit uncomfortable using it.
The Truth
No matter if you're a beginner or an expert, Smart Pix Manager can be an excellent addition to your toolbox. Before having to pay for it or uninstall it, there are 45 days to try this program, and there's only one question that remains: are you ready for this?
