14 DAY TRIAL // Wow! A new Corel product! It really makes me wonder what they could be up to this time, since there was a lot of movement in their camp in the last year - WinZip goes to Corel, InterVideo goes to Corel...now, what do we have here?
Snapfire is an answer to Adobe's Photoshop Elements or Microsoft's Digital Image Starter Edition 2006, and can be considered a close competitor only to the last one, since Elements 4.0 is a program that belongs to a superior price and features class. Let's find out more about Corel's latest creation, shall we?
Snapfire's current version is 1.0 and this is the first release that I have seen so far. What I have here is a shareware version of this program, while its full flavor will make you take 35$ out of your pocket, the same price that you have to pay for Digital Image Starter Edition. I won't compare these two programs, but focus on Snapfire. Its installation package has 15.3MB in size and the setup process is very easy to follow, but now it's time to tell you more about the program's interface and features. Lately, I've noticed that image organizers have interfaces that try to be as colorful, rounded and pleasant to use as possible, without becoming ridiculous. Snapfire doesn't step out of this group, delivering an excellent design with a personal touch. Of course, using the program's interface is as easy as possible, since all the features are two mouse clicks away. Features? What features? Let's check'em out!
First of all, the main tasks that you can accomplish with this program are photo management, retouching and creation of print projects such as calendars or collages. Since we settled this one, now, I have to tell you how you can do your job with this program...or at least how I did mine.
To my surprise, there's less to this program than I expected. You don't have to waste your time trying to understand it at all. Let's see some photo management, for the start...
The program's interface has four areas inside the left menu - Home, Enhance, Create and Message Center. We'll erase the last one from the list because this is nothing more than an advertising source for Corel. I have nothing against it, for some people, the tutorials or free downloads that are advertised there can be useful, but not for me. At least not now.
The Home area can also be erased from my list, but I have to tell you about one nice feature to be found here. Its name is Quick Review and can be found in the Review section, together with View Photo Info. Other settings scattered here allow you to send photos through E-mail, print them on your printer or order prints, adjust your pictures with Paint Shop Pro (I don't have that one installed, so in my case, this item was greyed out) and, finally, find photos based on different criterions (date, ratings or keywords).
Once you have a photo opened inside the program (the best choice would be to pick one from your hard drive, because I wasn't able to spot any Aquire option), there aren't many choices available if you want to enhance it: Automatic Quick Fix, manual Photo Fix, red eye removal brush, crop, rotate, sepia and black and white. Unfortunately, there isn't more to be found here. Well, it's only the first version, but this is Corel, not some obscure basement software two-man company...
The Projects available are the part that I like the most, since you can create calendars, photo collages, greeting cards and album pages. All you have to do is drag your photos into the photo tray (you can save more than one, for later use), and then drag them to the current design. There are a lot of layouts available for your prints, and this is a great thing.
Now, I'll leave the rest of it for you and move to the conclusions, as usual.
The Good
Snapfire is a fair organizer, a poor photo enhancement tool and a very good prints creator. Above everything else, it's nice looking and extremely easy to use. Although not really needed, you can use the well done Help file to clear some things up, and the producer's support doesn't stop here.
The Bad
I don't like the messages displayed by the program, its speed and lack of features that I was expecting here, but I found them MIA. I am sure we'll see a lot more in the future.
The Truth
Corel Snapfire is more smoke than fire at the moment, but things are not that bad, after all. If you are crazy about printing your photos, then this program can be an excellent choice for a home user's purposes. All in all, you can skip checking this program if you have anything better to do, but if you take a chance and try it, you won't waste your time.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
