Win One of Three Copies of Microsoft's Digital Image Suite 2006

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=003' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=003</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Get powerful digital photography tools and perfect your shots - whether you're a beginner or a pro. New, easy-to-use features help you organize, creatively enhance and share your pictures with the world. As your passion for great photography grows, Microsoft Digital Image Suite gives you exactly what you need to bring your vision to life."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/d_screen1_suite-a.jpg" /><br /><br />Want a chance to win one of three copies of Digital Image Suite 2006? Here's how: last week I <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,9119">published an interview</a> with AnneMarie Thomas, the Marketing Manager from Microsoft's Digital Imaging Group. Based on that interview, or on the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=003">product Web site</a>, post a message in this discussion thread telling me <b>which feature of Digital Image Suite 2006 you'd find most useful for your digital imaging needs</b>. The Intelligent Panoramic Stitching? The PhotoStory 3.1 client? The five-start rating system? It can be any feature you wish - just post a message telling me which feature and why you'd find it helpful.<br /><br />This coming Friday at noon I'll randomly pick three messages in the discussion thread and each person will win on copy of Digital Image Suite 2006. That's all - enjoy!

[Kevin Jackson]

I like the Photostory Client. It would be great for putting together albums to tell a story to send to my family who all live out of town so they can see what's going on in our lives.

[Outlaw94]

I would love to get my hands on this for free. I just bought a Canon Digital Rebel Xt and would love to have the stitching feature. I take a good bit of landscape photos and would love to be able to have a wide panoramic picture of Niagra Falls or Daytona Speedway.

[ctmagnus]

I kinda like doing panaromas. So I'd probably use the stitching feature the most.

[msprague]

I would use the editing features for cropping and light balance. Also, the backup feature for burning to DVD.

[gdl39]

I take a lot of photos &amp; would love to have the panorama feature.

[gibb193a]

I like the different ways of organizing your pictures: keywords, folders and tagging.

[jeffd]

Panoramic Stitching? hell.. if it's actually pretty good.. I may have to..test..this product out. ;) The best stitching program I've come accross so far was some no-name standalone I forget now, it still really wasnt good unless my pictures were panoramic perfectly shot (ie tripod leveling and shutter speed locked so same amount of light is let in on all pictures).

[mrwickham]

In previous versions I have enjoyed the ability to quickly select an image and save it for a PDA, Smartphone, or an email size file. Yes, I know I can do these same things in Photoshop, but MS made it so easy. In Photoshop I would have to first setup those size formats myself. Ok, so it's only one more step, but we're talking about free software here I have to put something done :o)

[migz]

Straightforward authoring of slideshows using PhotoStory to display on my PDA is the feature I'd like to try out.

[timmy]

Organizing my photos... I really like Picasa, but the UI is sometimes strange. I like this UI better.

[ptyork]

I currently use Picassa and like it for the most part. However, the image enhancement features are just a bit lacking, IMHO. Digital Image Suite 2006 seems to have a more complete enhancement system that is even more intuitive than Picassa's. I also think that the ability to use Photoshop plug-ins would be a great benefit when I want a specific filter that isn't available out of the box.

[Ivan]

I also use Picasa but I really liked the feature of creating special projects such as greeting cards and calendars from within this program.

I also hope the image enhancing features are better than Picasa's (which are rather basic).

Even if I don't win a copy I might have to check this software out by downloading that 60 day free trial Starter Edition.

Regards,

Ivan.

[xycury]

This would be a great xmas gift for my girlfriend.

She's used to the old photodraw 2000 and i tried to get her to use Photoshop elements but it was very ugly and not a system she was used to, so it sits in dust.

I viewed the demos and all the features are very user friendly.

I would definately like the photostory and so would my girlfriend. We could incoporate those in home movies too.

Maybe this software will be the one to get her from using 6 year old stuff! (Plus the install CDs are scratched to h3ll!)

[fslongo]

Definately would use the Photo Story option.

[agyger]

I particularly like the slideshow feature. It seems to be very straightforward to create a slideshow with music. Simple, but effective :)

[alenzini]

Backup to DVD definitely. Anything to make the process easier and make it more likely to actually do it.

Andy

[jordy311]

Definitelly backup feature for burning and archiving to DVD.

Jordy311

[bcre8v2]

... but I feel I would most likely use the rating system to purge my "worst" pictures.

-Steve

[bryhawks]

Definitely the PhotoStory client - my daughter takes hundreds of pictures and is always building a story for someone in our family.

[bleeman]

The PhotoStory Client is the big plus for me. I love creating them for my PocketPC. It's cool being able to take them with me to show family/friends.

[ChunkyMonkey]

I would like to give PhotoStory a try. My mother's birthday is coming up. I'd like to put something like together for her party.

[kiwi]

Photostory would help me to catalog all my thousands of photos!
agh!

B

[JPD]

Panoramic Stitching ! I like travel in the mountains - particularly in winter skiing season. This would let me make some Great Pictures!

[fit4life]

Just want to win...

Pick Me, Pick Me.....

[bluemax]

I like Photostory. It would me a fast and easy way to share event photos with family and friends.

At work I can use it to quickly present new information about and to our clients. Power Point is fine but Photostory makes it easy to distribute the "story" I'm trying to tell in a way that I know others will be able to view. I don't have to worry about fonts and they don't have to worry about software.

Bill B

[TheWolfen]

I'd have to say the advanced editing features would be the most useful to me when combined with batch editing. It would make it easier for me to handle tasks I do over and over with many different photos, and I like access to the histograms. It is pretty hard to pick one feature though - it looks like an improvement over Picasa in several areas.

[cmchavez]

With the previous versions, I think that the most useful features have been the batch editing, since I have to handle multiple pictures that were taken under to the same lighting conditions. A real time saver, especially when I have to export the edited photos out to webpages in a hurry. I also have really like using the keyword\search feature within the photo library; again, a time-saver if I need to reference "archived" photos for future use.

[wesk]

I would have to say that the panoramic stitching is the feature that interests me the most. I have a Canon camera that will take panoramic pictures and I've taking quite a few, but I've never put them together into a finished picture.

Wes

[Mustard]

As strange as this sounds, the most useful feature for me would be the designer templates. That's one of the things that I think is missing from programs like photoshop. Maybe I'm just lazy and don't like designing backgrounds and borders from scratch! :D

[bobkatt]

http://www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=003&amp;active_tab=Compare

The ability to take an image in the camera's native format and transfer "as is" happens to be the best feature yet. Since memory cards are large and cheap, there is no reason to have the camera compress the RAW image taken in to a jpg file format. Compressing and converting loses some of the original photographs details.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/why_use_raw.html#advantages

If your camera supports the RAW format, there is no reason for you to use JPG anymore. You can have the ability to convert the file to jpg on your computer afterwards. You cannot accidentally replace a RAW file. These files cannot be altered in anyway like the original film negatives.

Bob

[Deemo]

Definitely Photostory.
Photos are meant for sharing and something that helps to do this is great!

[robert_biggs]

I own a Canon SD400 camera and it has a stitching feature, but I haven't been impressed by it. I'd like to try this program's stitching feature to see how well it works. The star rating feature could be useful too.

[larryh]

I think the feature that I would use most would be the ability to work with RAW images, wife got a new camera that can use the RAW format and it would be nice to work with that as opposed to having to save the pictures as a jpeg image.

[Fitch]

If the stitching feature is good, I'd find that the most useful. With the trusty Canon S400, I have taken some great panoramas-- my favorite of which is a vertical one of an amzing, tall sequoia. That Canon software is just so clunky, I feel like I'm going to crash it if I breathe on it funny.

[Gordo]

Count me in for the slide show feature. :)
:D

[Glen8]

Hard to select just one feature of Digital Image 2006 Suite!

I used PhotoStory 3 this past summer to create a slideshow of pictures from a family trip and burn it to a CD. It was a terrific way to send this record to my family so far away in Australia. PhotoStory was the best of several slideshow-creating programs I tried.

Another feature I'd like to play around with is the Panoramic one. I used to have a camera which could do them but now have a different one which doesn't have the feature built in.

And since many of my pictures are of my animals, which like kids, are not always co-operative when being photographed, the correction options for photos are a real necessity!

[karinatwork]

Photostory! Man, I'd pay lots of cash if the program wasn't available for free. It's just amazing. I have started my own little home business with doing the slideshows for people who feel that they can't do it by themselves. Of course, I add some artistic touches to my shows, but still... it's THE thing you want to do with your digital pictures!

Photostory rocks! And if it's integrated in an album application - a dream come true!!

K.

:D

[Frank Cox]

Photostory 3 the free version is a great product from Microsoft. I used it to produce several shows of our 35th class reunion and everyone was impressed. I would love to get a hold of this program. I think that I could expand on what I have already produced. :idea:

[u4magic]

Panarama stithing would be the most useful to myself.
Thank you for asking :-)

[XUHAB79]

Panoramic Stitching ! Sounds like fun.

[chench]

I would really like to do more panoramas but don't have the tools to do so. I did a really nice one at my site, www.chench.com/thelittlethings/ It's right on the top of the page. It took me about 4 hours! I'd do more if I had a better tool. Please consider me for the contest.

Thanks,
Ken

[leslietroyer]

All the features are spify - but I really need a way to organize my photos. Right now it is just toss the photos into a directory that has some sort of logical name (when we get around to it) -- otherwise it is just stored by date.

BTW - The Canon S2 is a great camera --- the image stabalization really helps with thoes long zooms.

Les

[Paul Martin]

I think some of the photo editing tools would be handy, such as Intuitive Crop.

[chench]

Oh my! It's almost noon! :o

[igroknful]

I photograph my watch collection and enter the photos in the weekly contest on various watch fora websites. I have yet to win one. The photo editing software I use is an internet freeby that isn't very powerful and lacks diversity.

Thanks,
Rhonda - acecafe

[Jason Dunn]

Time's up, contest over, winners announced on front page soon. Thanks for trying out everyone!