Using Aephid Photokeeper 2001 to create photo albums and slide shows is easy. The only requirement is that the photos must be either digital or have been scanned into the computer. Once those pictures are in the computer it is recommended that the pictures for each album be placed into a separate folder.

For simplicity of use it comes with four Wizards (see figure 1) -- Create Album, Create Collection, Slide Duration and Slide Effects -- to help the beginner start creating an album and/or a slide show effortlessly and quickly. The Wizard walks the user through the necessary steps to perform those four basic functions. The Create Collection Wizard is complicated and the online tutorial is lacking in specific information.

Figure 1 - Wizards Menu

Photokeeper is designed with four basic views: Page View, Photo View, Slideshow View, and Zoomed Thumbnail View. These views can all be accessed by either the toolbar buttons or using the View menu. Depending upon which view the user is in, the View toolbar buttons at the bottom of the screen change.

In order to create an Album, the user must find the files on his or her hard drive and either click on the file name and drag it to the window where the album is created. This will result in a Page View. It is possible to choose several files and drag them all into the album window at once. (Figure 2)

Figure 2 - Page View

To look at individual photos either the Photo View or the Zoomed Thumbnail view can be used. If the user just wants to look at a large picture of one of the thumbnails in the album, just double click on the thumbnail while in the Page View.

Photokeeper has three tools available on the top left of the toolbar to help one create an album: (Figure 3)

Figure 3 - Tool menus

1. The Arrow for selecting filenames, textures, or pictures and manipulating them, including resizing.

2. The Scalpel for trimming pictures that are placed in the album.

3. The Annotator for adding text information to either a picture or a page.

None of these tools permanently change the original picture, only the picture as displayed within Photokeeper.

All the toolbar buttons are not only accessible using the buttons, but they can be found using the drop down menus at the top of Photokeeper. Additionally, since the Arrow is the default and Photokeeper reverts back to it after another tool has been selected and used, the user can toggle between it and the previously used tool by hitting the spacebar.

Once a user has set up a page or pages of pictures, clicking on the Slide show button (Figure 4) sets up an automatic slide show of all the pictures on all the pages.

Figure 4 - Slide Show view menu

Right clicking while in the Slide Show view brings up a slide show preferences menu that can be altered by the user. (Figure 5) Right-clicking in any view brings up a separate command menu for that view, making it easy to change rotation, size or other attribute.

Figure 5 - Slide show preferences menu

Now that we have seen how easy it is to manipulate the pictures and the pages, let's take a look at some more advanced features of Photokeeper.

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