Review: Dive into SplashPhoto, and Leave Your Shoeboxes Behind.

Posted by: dgoldring on Feb 17 2007 - 2,739 views

 I think whoever invented the digital camera was a genius.  Now, instead of taking one grainy, off center photo of the kids, waiting a week to develop it, and then finding out that I should have been two inches to the left; I can take 100 grainy photos of the kids from all angles, and instantly find out that they are all terrible.  Then, I can plunk them all on a memory card or hard drive, never to be seen again.  In fact, my memory cards are quickly becoming the digital equivalent of a shoe box…filled with pictures that I cannot identify and will probably never look at again.  What I need is a way to organize them all on my device.  Something that will transform my digital shoebox into a digital masterpiece…or at least display my pictures in such a way that they appear to be organized.  What I needed was SplashData’s SplashPhoto.

Installation and Registration: Simply run the installation package from your desktop computer.  This will install SplashPhoto on your device via ActiveSync.  Additionally, this will also install SplashPhoto Desktop and the Splash Photo User Guide on your desktop computer, as well as a variety of sample images on your device.  You can run the entire package in trial mode for 30 days.  Let’s be honest.  If you cannot decide in 30 days that this is a great program, then any additional time will certainly not help.  Once you purchase the program, just enter the registration code and you are on your way to organizing yourself right into a much larger memory card.

Loading Images: Loading images into the SplashPhoto library is easy.  You can load them into SplashPhoto Desktop and sync them onto your device, or manually copy them directly to your memory card.  Once you are in the program, just tell it which memory cards to search (on my device, this is CF card, SD card, Built-In-Storage,  Internal or All) and a gallery of all of the pictures in that location will be displayed.  As you can see from the picture above, the location menu will be customized to your device.

Be careful if you load your pictures manually instead of syncing them from SplashPhoto Desktop.  One thing I learned is that SplashPhoto will only search certain directories on your device for pictures.  Your photos must be stored in either a SplashPhoto subdirectory of My Documents, or in a directory called, "DCIM". If they are not in one of these two directories, then SplashPhoto will not be able to find them.  

Categories: The category menu, which is located on top of the browser screen, allows you to further organize your images.  Essentially, this allows you to take that giant, overstuffed shoebox with the torn edges, and sort your images into an endless supply of smaller boxes.  Did you visit Grandma last week?  Create a category.  Celebrate a Birthday?  New category.  You can create, rename or even delete categories from the Edit Categories option. 

Additionally, from the Categories menu, select any category and the browser will display only the images assigned to that category.  I was disappointed, however, to find that I could not assign multiple categories to a single picture.  This is really one fantastic benefit of storing pictures digitally — the ability to store them in multiple "shoeboxes".  This is a significant and unfortunate omission, which I think is a necessity for future versions.

Viewing Images: Once you have loaded your images into SplashPhoto, the gallery of images can be displayed in one of four formats:

• List View will display information about each photo in a customizable list format.  You can choose the information to be viewed in each field, and even resize the the columns.  Tap the headers to change the sorting field.
• Large Thumbnail will display 9 images on the screen along with the file names.
• Small Thumbnail will display 16 images with no additional information.
• Detail View, which is shown above, is probably the best and easiest way to sort your pictures.  It is a compromise between the information in list view and the visual approach of the thumbnails.  This view shows you four thumbnail images on a screen as well as the name and category of each image and any notes you may have written.

Just scroll through the list of images, in any of the four modes, and tap to select the one you want to view.  This will bring up a full screen sized view of that image.  From here you can scroll through all of the images on your list (use the hardware buttons or the onscreen menu to move forward or backward).  Tap the screen a second time to return to image gallery.  Tap and hold your stylus on the image to bring up the image context menu.  From here, you can enter details or notes, assign a location or category for the image, zoom, delete, or share the image.  In WM5, you can also choose to set an image as your Today Screen Wallpaper from this menu.  This option was not available in WM2003SE, however.

You can also customize the gallery view by selecting preferences.  From here, you can decide which field will be used to sort the browser, which columns will be included in list view, whether to use SplashPhoto as your default .JPG viewer, and whether to auto rotate images on your screen. 

Details and Notes: You can add various details to your pictures.  From the image context menu, just select details to edit this information.  From here, you can rename the image, select a new category, move the image to a new location, mark the image as private so only you can view it, change the resolution or delete the image entirely.  This view will also show you the size of the image and the date it was uploaded (not the date the picture was taken).  I was disapointed, however, by the omission of an ability to assign keywords to each picture.   A customized keyword search is another necessary addition to this program.

Additionally, the notes screen offers a blank slate.  If you want to enter any information which does not fit into any of the predefined fields in the details screen, enter it here.  Once entered, your notes will appear with the image in detail view.

Sharing Images: I was particularly impressed with how easy it is to share an image from SplashPhoto.  From the image context menu, just select Beam or Send Via Email.  If you choose to send via email, SplashPhoto will automatically open your default email client (in my case WebIS FlexMail) instead of the generic Outlook client that comes with your device.  This feature, although minor, was appreciated.

SlideShow:  Although it is easy to browse through photos manually, the most convenient way to show off those new pictures of your nephews visiting Mickey Mouse is via the slide show.  To begin a slideshow, just tap the icon on the bottom of the screen.  This will automatically begin a slideshow of all of the images assigned to the category you are currently viewing.  To expand the slideshow and include more images, simply select All in the categories menu.

To customize the slide show, just select Slideshow Preferences.  From here, you can choose whether to show the slides in order or randomly, as well as how much time each slide will be displayed.

Memory Optimization: One of the biggest concerns for users of Pocket PCs is the use and abuse of their limited memory resources.  SplashPhoto acknowledges this concern.  When an image is synced from SplashPhoto Desktop, it is cropped and resized to fit the handheld display.  This minimizes the amount of memory used to store and view images on your device.

Desktop Companion: One of my favorite components of SplashPhoto is the desktop companion.  From here, you can add or remove images from your library, and even edit them before placing them on your mobile device.  You can also choose which images from your library to sync onto your mobile device.  By syncing, instead of manually transferring your pictures to the memory card, you ensure that they are optimized for your mobile device and stored in the correct directory. 

Conclusion: SplashPhoto is an excellent photo viewer.  If all you need is a program that will allow you to easily transfer images from your desktop to your mobile device and then display them for others, then this is the program for you, as the controls are much less complex than other programs.  On the other hand, I would have liked it to be more customizable, particularly by adding the ability to conduct a keyword search.  Additionally, if you want to be able to edit or manipulate photos while you are mobile, you will be disappointed.  Nonetheless, if you edit photos on your desktop or from another program before loading them into SplashPhoto, then there is no program which makes it easier to show off the 750 digital pictures you took of your lens cap on that last family vacation.

Vital Statistics:

Name: SplashPhoto

Version: 4.42

Platform: WM 2003 SE

Also Available: WM5, Palm OS, Smartphone, Blackberry, Symbian, Series 60 (Nokia) 

Developer: SplashData 

Available From: SplashPhoto

                           JAMM Store

 Price: $29.95

 SplashPhoto is also available as part of the SplashWallet package, which includes SplashShopper and SplashID (SplashMoney is also included in the Palm OS version).  The SplashWallet package costs $59.95 at the JAMM store.

 

Technorati Tags: SplashData - SplashPhoto - SplashWallet - Just - Another - Mobile - Monday

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