by Steve Smith on July 9, 2007
With free photo organizers/editors like Google's Picasa and Kodak EasyShare on the market, it's hard to see where a $39.99 me-too from Corel earns its price tag. It almost doesn't. Most of the organization, editing, print, and sharing functions are good but pedestrian. Snapfire Plus tries to win you over with its attractive interface, which includes telescoping blades that let you move from an image-organization window to enhancements. It also makes quick work of slideshow-making and project creations.
Image editing is a bit stronger than the freebies', with tools like blemish removers, teeth whiteners, and more detailed quality fixes. Snapfire includes a wealth of templates you can use to design personal scrapbook pages, greeting cards, and calendars. We also like the sharing features, which let you right-click on any image or tray of pics and e-mail them with a host of options.
Although Snapfire Plus is good enough, it has surprising limitations for a $40 program. The code is buggy and sluggish. The program tends to load slowly, and we suffered several crashes. The slideshow maker is less powerful than the free Movie Maker and Photo Story programs you can get from Microsoft. There's no easy way to add narration, and you don't get any of the transition effects that are de rigeur. Overall, Snapfire Plus has some advantages over the free alternatives, but this app needs more work.
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