Customer Reviews

Digital Image Suite 9 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have used several programs like ACDSee, Adobe Elements, Photoshop Album, and Photoshop 7 and some other photo editing and organization programs.

I like the ease and simplicity that ACDSee offers. It is fast and stable with some basic editing features built in.

I like the advanced features of Adobe Elements 2.0. But I don't have the time or desire to become an expert to be able to use it.

I think overall, the Digital Image Suite 9 package is a nice balance. It's fast, clean, kind of intuitive, and you get a full featured package with enough advanced features to keep most people happy.

One reviewer said this product did not have 48 bit support, only 24 bit. Well guess what...no other editing packages provide support for 48 bit! Just recently, Photoshop CS is the first product to provide true 48 bit support.

I have my own business and wanted to whip up a corporate logo fast. I spent days exploring and trying to figure out Adobe Elements. I bought a beginners book, and dedicated 4 straight days to it. It got me nowhere. I took the book back and decided not to purchase a full version of Elements.
I borrowed this program from a friend, tried it and banged out a corporate logo in 2 days. I bought this program and I have been happy with it. However, I have no desire to develop my photo editing skills since my business is in computer networks, not photo editing. I do take photos of client locations so I can plan cabling and setups. I use this program for quickie editing and then I am done.

Overall, the novice/beginner will appreciate the simplicity, the tutorials and integration between all components. The price seems fair too. If your desires grow, you can always advance to something like Photoshop Elements or CS.

Pros: Easy, attractive interface. Good integration.
Cons: Too easy to modify original photo. Too underpowered. Keyword handling has poor functionality. Resizing difficult. Red eye reduction poor.

Now for the details:
This product seriously underperforms compared to Adobe's products. The Adobe Album and Elements combination is MUCH more powerful. Digital Image Suite (DIS) doesn't even create web photo galleries. The keyword function is crazy... it's all one level, so once you add any number of keywords, you have to scroll through long lists (Album has multi-level keyword handling, but only to three levels). With Album, you double-click to edit simple things, such as red-eye reduction and cropping, or right-click for more complicated tasks. With DIS, any editing requires opening Digital Image Pro, which can be a resource drain for the average computer. Additionally, you have to make a copy of a photo to edit a copy... Adobe creates a copy automatically, which prevents you from accidentally editing your original photo. And the red-eye wizard in Album is better... eyes look more natural (note: neither program gets rid of pet "red-eyes", since they're not really red).

And something that I can't believe they did: you can't resize the image by pixels. So if I want to resize my 2492x1924 image to 640x480 image to email, I have to guess what printed size that would be at a certain resolution. With Adobe Photoelements, you can specify size in pixels or inches.. MUCH more useful.

I got this software since I thought Microsoft would put out a competitive product, but I was very disappointed. This product doesn't have a single feature that is better than Adobe Album/Photoshop elements, and most features aren't as good, if they are available at all. I wish I could return it...

I've been using digital cameras for about 4 years and have roughtly 15K photos and had overgrown the freeware ACeeDSee program.

I purchased the DIS9 and Adobe PS Element/Album 2.0 at the same time and started with DIS9 since it has a 30 day money back guarantee. After installing the DIS9's Library, I was pleased to have it locate and add all of my photos in the library using the search feature.

The first thing I did was archive all my photos to three DVD's which was very simple and reasonably fast. So far, so good...

Then I tried browsing my photos in order to experiment with tags and organizing. I found, however, that many of the photo thumbnails were not showing. I did see them showing up here and there periodically added and since the CPU meter was pegged at the high 90% level, I figured it was just digesting the large input creating thumbnails. I decided to let it crank on overnight.

Next morning (11 hours later), I found it still churning away and not only that, I could not get the program to respond any faster than several seconds after clicking a photo or menu item.

I have a AMD XP2400+ with 1 GB of RAM and over 240 GB HDD space, so I don't think I am lacking resources. I removed and re-installed the program, but still high CPU usage and slow responses.

MS Tech Support suggested I try it all again in safe mode (no other programs or services dragging down performance). This made no difference. I let the program run for nearly a full day (on the theory that it was *still* in a one-time process of creating thumbnails), but it still was the same slow speed.

Seeing this was unlikely to change, I installed Adobe PS Album. I had to split up the imports into roughly 5K photos each or it would crash, but, it has all the my photos, and I can now organize them with tags and such. I don't know about it's archive abilities, but if there are no major snags, it will probably do the trick.

MS does not seem to have an answer to the problem other than suggesting I utilize the 30 return policy. Someone *must* be testing the program with a lot more photos than I have. Very strange...

My scanner supports 48 bit color but Microsoft Digital Image Suite 9 only supports 24 bit color! If you open an image in Microsoft Digital Image Suite 9 it converts it to 24 bit color! Microsoft does not document this 24 bit color short coming on the outside of the box; you have to wait until you have opened the box and read the manual!

The pull down menus work well but the expanded selections from the pull down menus consume large amounts of the screen when they are open. The document "close" button is missing from the top right hand side of the screen? What's up with that??? The fill flash feature brightens the whole image instead of only the subject... pretty useless. I was unable to easily duplicate many of the touchup features shown on the front pages of the product box. This makes me wonder if Microsoft actually used this product to produce the box cover or if the used a more professional product like Adobe Photoshop 7.0.

Microsoft Digital Image Suite 9's main application is Microsoft Picture It! bundled with some additional utilities. I found this package to be not much better than its earlier version which was called Microsoft Photo Draw 2000. I am very disappointed in this "new" product.

Floundered with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 for over one year. Finally got to the point that I was totally dissatisfied because I couldn't do a simple red eye fix easily. Decided to invest in another digital photo editing package. After reading for 2 hours choose MS Digital Image Suite 9.

The first 30 minutes that played around with the package, I could do more with it than the 1 1/2 years with Adobe. This package is very intuitive. I was accomplishing edits and special effects that I was never able to do with Adobe.

I was using PhotoDraw (Microsoft's predecessor to Picture It!) for basic photo editing since 1999. I picked up this new product primarily because of the library program. The library component works nicely, pretty much as advertised, but it's still pretty basic and not worth [the money]on its own. So I expected the photo editing software to be a marked improvement over PhotoDraw. It's not.
There are some improvements, particularly giving the user more control over resolution, vastly improved printing options, and automatic white balancing. However, some PhotoDraw features are missing ("arrange" function is sorely missed) or hard to use (filling a specific area with an effect or color is nearly impossible).
So while this program has been stable and would likely suit someone looking for his first photo editing program, it's no world-beater and would be a much more convincing value if priced [lower].

I have had this program for at least 2 or 3 years. I personally love it. I tried other products and for me you really need to be smarter at computers than the average Joe to use them. I have honestly truely enjoyed this program a lot. It's easy to use! I don't feel like I need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. You can edit your pictures, do all kinds of projects like cards, building frames, etc., and much more. I would recommend it, especially for people who are not computer geniuses.

This is one of the first Microsoft products (other that Win XP) that has worked extremely well. It has great tools for photos and worked perfectly and without a hitch using a scanner. Scanner processing - by the way - whether it is 24 or 36 bit is not usually critical for reproductions since the "overscanning" adds little or nothing to the photo or graphic.
This is a home run for Microsoft-and I am not usually a fan of theirs. If you want a useful, sophisticated tool for the non-professional-this is excellent.

This review is strictly for people like me...beginners in the field of digital photography...who love digital photography so much, you want more and more stuff associated with it! But do you need this much photo software?

If you're like me, you already of course have photo software on your computer...I already had the MY PICTURES XP software, the Dell photo software, the ArcSoft photo software that came with my Canon scanner, the HP photo software that came with my HP printer, the PictureIt! photo software that came with MSN 9 internet service, and the Kodak EasyShare software that came with my camera. Oh, and just today I got the Ofoto photo software that came with my first Ofoto archive CD, which contains my film photos.

So, what in the world did I buy this for? Well, I got it half price, and I guess I was thinking the Digital Image would become the Almighty photo software, which would allow me to discard all the others. Wrong! It has not worked out that way.

This software has a great library, but so does the PictureIt! that comes with MSN 9. It's actually like the same Microsoft library. The Kodak software also has a great album library...only many time the photos are there only in thumbnail, and the files are in some other software library...at which time I must go find the photo file, right click, and open it with the Kodak software to get it back there.

But why would I want it back there, you ask...well, as it turns out, the Kodak software is the only one that flawlessly controls my Iomega external CD burner. The Kodak software also seems to make better prints, than when I use the HP software, which is what I must use with the Digital Image. Moreover, the Kodak software is simply easier and less time consuming.

Of course, the Digital Image has tons more editing features and such. So, what you need to ask yourself, if you are a beginner like me, is do you have the time and interest in exploring massive photo software? If you do, this is an excellent program to get. If you do not, you may want to save your money, and just use one of the easier, less costly softwares...such as one you already have.

This does come with a huge manual, which I was so pleased about, since I am an avid reader of manuals. Yet, I'm afraid the manual is not that detailed! It's odd--it even devotes lots of pages to a photographer who discusses her adventures with digital photography. Gee, if I wanted to read such stories, I would have gotten a photography book! This was suppose to be a detailed manual, but in my opinion, it fell short. Also, all the "auto-fix" editing devices have fallen short--the Kodak software does just as well in fixing photos.

I intend to come back and edit this in the future, if I discover I can't live without this Digital Iamge software. But right now, I could. Easily. I just don't have the time to explore it all right now, or to troubleshoot the problems it has with the Iomega burner. In just a few minutes, I can burn hundreds of photos on a CD-R with the Kodak software. When I use this software to burn CD-Rs, it's one bizarre problem after another. I'd just rather spend my photography time taking pictures...not editing them...or troubleshooting software or hardware problems.

Pros:
cool features such as organizing pictures using keywords.
Versatile.
Satisfies average user.

Cons:
CPU consuming!!!!
I am using a P4 2.4Ghz 512MB PC. Everytime i open the "Digital Image Library", the CPU usage immediately goes to 100% continuously and the pictures start flashing! When i use this amazon window the cover the library window, the CPU usage drops down immediately. It looks like the library is constantly refreshing the pictures. I am sure there is sofware defects with this product because displaying the pictures shouldn't be that CPU consuming.

I decided not to use it to organize my pictures anymore because it's to uncomfortable to use a software that will monopolize the CPU.