* Digital Photo Album Software?

[Bute01]

Hello

Does anyone know if there is a software program that could be used to make a 'Victorian' type album that can be viewed by others. I expect one could be made in PowerPoint, but I have never got to grips with that!

I have quite a large number of old family photo's (which I know I am lucky to have). Some are in a lovely old album and it would be nice to try and produce something that could be viewed by others. All the better if I could put a name underneath the images of people I know. There appears to be Photo Book software that are connected to companies that print your photo books.

I suppose the other option would be software, with book layout, that the page back ground could be changed and picture and text boxes added. I was looking at the Book option in FH5, but as yet have not played around with the options.

I expect others have photo's like me, and may have come up with a answer to my question!

Thank you

[Jane]

I use a program called FotoFusion, but it's not cheap for the Multipage program.
http://site.lumapix.com/purchase-fotofusion/
Another option is the Serif program, which is much cheaper, but I have not played with it much.
http://www.serif.com/digital-scrapbooking/

Of course a final option is to use the drawing tools built into V5 and the Blank diagram option combined with the book option to build your books directly in FH.

[tatewise]

Could you please be a little clearer about what you mean by an "album that can be viewed by others".
Do you mean online via the Internet, or on a Pendrive/DVD on a PC, or via a DVD player & TV, or printed as a book?

I would avoid using proprietary software such as MS Office PowerPoint (.ppt*) as the final file format, because these are not supported on PC without the necessary software packages installed.
Always convert to public open file formats such as PDF before distribution, then the files are likely to be viewable not only on Windows PC, but also Apple Mac, etc.

[Bute01]

Hello

I suppose I was thinking in the line of PDF format that could be seen on pc/tablet or printed for an older relative that doesn't have such devices.

One of my Victorian albums must be approaching a hundred years old now. It has about forty photo's. Some are single photo's in one page, some four to a page.
I recently took my tablet to visit an old relative, and we went through a 'slideshow' of the photo's of our ancestors.

I must say I had previously carefully removed each photo from the album, checked no names were on the back etc., and scanned them all into my pc.

I had thought of trying to take digital photo's of the 'whole' pages, showing the floral decoration, borders of the insets etc., but there would be a certain amount of detail loss to the features of the image of the person.

One aspect of modern life is that there will be very few photo albums to pass on to future generations. Will we be disciplined enough to 'back-up' , pass on keep images for people researching family history in a hundred years time!

[Jane]

Forgot to say, it's worth a google for "digital scrapbooking" as that's what you are looking to do. Here is one I did ages ago.

[tatewise]

OK, if you have a recent version of MS Office PowerPoint or OpenOffice Impress then after creating the slide-show it can be saved/exported in PDF format, which can be printed if desired.

Some tablets, smart-phones, and eBook readers do not handle standard PDF well, and may need Epub or Mobi format.
See how_to:family_historian_documentation|> Family Historian Documentation.

[johnmorrisoniom]

Mike said

I would avoid using proprietary software such as MS Office PowerPoint (.ppt*) as the final file format, because these are not supported on PC without the necessary software packages installed.

There is a free viewer for powerpoint that can be downloaded. It does not need powerpoint to work.

[Bute01]

Thank very much you for your help Jane and Mike. I would be more than happy if I could manage to produce something half as good as you!
Family History is a hobby you can never get bored with, so many possibilites to try something new.

[tatewise]

John said:

There is a free viewer for powerpoint that can be downloaded.

That is exactly my point. When say the .ppt file is opened, Windows does not say a PowerPoint viewer is needed, it just says Windows cannot open the file, and the user is confused as to what to do. Also as I mentioned it gets more complex for other platforms such as tablets, Ipads, eBook readers, etc.