Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Available Now (Windows)

I was surprised to hear of Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 being released so soon after the initial release of Album less than a year ago. Last month, I had a chance to talk with the Senior Product Manager about some of the new features and enhancements in Photoshop Album 2.0. Today I can share these details with the rest of you, including information on a free starter edition of Photoshop Album.

Here's a brief summary from my notes of some of the new things you'll find in Photoshop Album 2.0:

• Adobe told me the surprise hit of version 1.0 was the calendar view, and now it's been completely overhauled to be even more flexible.
• You can now create custom top level categories for tagging. You're not restricted to People, Places, Events, and Other for the top level.
• Instantly convert folder names to tags when importing photos.
• Tags are more portable. Tags stay with your pictures when sending them to other Album users.
• A new feature called Collections lets you compile custom groups of pictures in a staging area for working with in different ways.
• In the photo fix area, more options for tweaking have been added. It's still kept simple with one click fixes, but users who want a little more control can make adjustments using sliders.
• Batch fixing of multiple photos is now provided.
• Sharing options have been expanded with support for PDAs, mobile phones, and TiVo DVRs.
• New themed templates have been added for photo projects and users have more control over the layout of their creations.
• Photo archival and backup has been made easier. Users can create an initial backup of photos, tags, notes, captions, etc. An incremental backup option provides a quicker way for users to keep their backups up to date.
• A free starter edition of Photoshop Album is available for download today. The starter edition download is 5.6 MB and offers basic photo organizing, fixing, and sharing features. If you install the Starter Edition and later install Photoshop Album 2.0, the Starter Edition will be detected. Your image catalog and all data will be transferred to the new version and the Starter Edition will be uninstalled automatically.
• I also asked Adobe about the problems some users have reported regarding poor quality VCD slide shows and they assured me the VCD quality is now 400% improved.

Related Resources:

• Adobe Photoshop Album 1.0 Guide Review
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 Guide Review

Check back for my review of Photoshop Album 2.0 soon. Meanwhile, details from Adobe's official press release follow...

Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0, a dramatic upgrade packed with new features and usability enhancements that allow consumers to quickly and easily find, fix, share and preserve digital photo memories. With a streamlined user interface, digital photographers can utilize the Microsoft Windows-based software to easily organize photos, fix common photography problems and create a wider variety of greeting cards, photo books, calendars and slide shows. Sharing photos with friends and family anywhere is simple with new options that provide the industry's most comprehensive support for sending images to mobile phones, Palm OS handhelds and TiVo Series2 digital video recorders.

Enhanced Find and Fix Features
Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 offers consumers expanded options for organizing and locating photos. Significant enhancements to the popular Calendar View feature now allow consumers to view photos in a year, day or month view, making it possible to track life's moments in pictures. Collections are another new feature that act as an organizational bin for a specific set of photos like a trip to Paris, a birthday party or an excursion to the zoo. Collections can be easily sorted, re-ordered and dropped into instant slideshows or album views to share with friends and family. The simple but elegant tagging system in Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 also lets users cross-reference collections in minutes.

Fixing photos has never been easier with one-click fixes and batch auto-fixes for multiple photos, adjusting lighting, color or blurry photos. A one-click red-eye fix now salvages even the most challenging red-eye photos. Share with Almost Anyone, Anywhere

Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 provides consumers with creative and innovative ways to share digital photos with friends and family on mobile phones, Palm OS handhelds with Adobe Reader and TiVo digital video recorders. Using TiVo's Home Media Option software, consumers can choose images in Photoshop Album 2.0 and view as a slideshow through their TiVo digital video recorder.

Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 comes with a new set of professionally designed templates for greeting cards, including new baby, Valentine's Day, winter holiday season and birthday oriented graphics. Specialized templates also have been added for e-mails, calendars and bound photo albums, Web galleries and slideshows complete with background music and transition effects. Direct links to popular online services such as Shutterfly(tm) and MyPublisher.com continue to allow users to order high-quality prints and linen-covered hardbound photo books. Online services vary worldwide.

Expanding the Photoshop Album Product Family
With this new release, the Photoshop Album product family has been expanded to meet the varied needs of a diverse spectrum of digital photographers. The family now includes:

• Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition, immediately available for free download from www.adobe.com/starteredition. The Photoshop Album Starter Edition is a trimmed-down version of Photoshop Album 2.0 with the tools necessary for very basic organizing, fixing and sharing of digital photos.
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 plus Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0, is a combination of two powerful products together in one affordable package for more sophisticated photo editing capabilities, including photo restoration, color correction, adding text and more. The addition of Photoshop Elements allows advanced users to explore the creative possibilities of image editing and simply enhance images with outstanding results. The Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 plus Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 bundled product is available immediately for an estimated street price of US$129.99.

Photoshop Album 2.0 Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 for Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows Millennium Edition or Windows XP is available immediately in the US and Canada through Adobe Authorized Resellers and the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com. The estimated street price is US$49.99. Registered users of the previous version of Adobe Photoshop Album or a competitive product also qualify for a US$15 mail-in rebate.