by Zane A. Lang, LACS

FlipAlbum Suite 4.0 enables you to quickly and easily create digital photo albums, or catalogs of digital images and multimedia files, whose interface appears like a traditional book. You can share these "Flipbooks" on the Internet or create CD’s containing your favorite digital images in a book format.

To install the software insert the CD in the CD ROM drive and Autostart launches the program. The install screen gives you the choice of installing the software, viewing sample Flipbooks, viewing clip art, or copying clipart to your hard drive. Clicking on "Install FA Suite" installs FlipAlbum 4.0 and FlipAlbum CD Maker 2.0 on your hard drive. The usual InstallShield Wizard appears and walks you painlessly through the installation process.

To launch the application, click on FlipAlbum 4.0 in the START, Programs, pop up menu. The program loads displaying a sample flipbook. The flipbook opens and appears like a book. You can try out flipping the pages forward and back to get the look and feel of flipbook design. Click on the right page and the page appears to turn in three dimensions to the next page. Click on the page on the left and the page turns back to the previous page. The whole approach is very intuitive, because it appears and functions very much like a real book. The pages even turn accompanied by the sound effect of a turning page. When you look closely at the sample flipbook you notice numbered tabs on certain pages. These are bookmarks. To add a bookmark, simply click on the Bookmarks menu selection, click on Add and then select the right or the left page. A bookmark displaying the page number appears on the selected page. To delete a bookmark just click on Bookmarks, Remove and then select the right or the left page. You can also use the FlipTo menu selection to move to the front or back cover of the flipbook, to a particular page, to the table of contents or to the index.

To create a new flipbook click on the File menu and click on Insert Multi-Media Object. Go to the directory where you have your digital images. You can see a thumbnail of each of the digital images by clicking on the View As Thumbnail button. Drag each of the images you want in the album onto the contents page. A thumbnail of the image is automatically created in the front of the album along with an entry in the table of contents and the index for each image. Go to the front cover of the album, right click and select Annotate. You can then create a title for the album in the font and style you like, placing it where you like on the front of the album.

You can also create a flipbook by opening a folder. Click on the Folder menu item, use the dialog box to find the folder containing your digital images, and save your new flipbook. The digital images are imported into the flipbook with an automatically created table of contents and index.

There are two different ways of putting comments or notes into your photo album: Annotate or Add Text. The annotation function puts text on the album pages. The Add Text function uses an image editor and incorporates text into the digital image. To annotate a page, click on the Edit menu, click on Annotate, click on the left or right page of the photo album and enter the text in the annotation box in the font and style of your choice. To Add Text to an image, click on the Edit menu, click on Image Edit, choose Left Page or Right Page and the Image Editor opens. You can then insert text directly into the digital image. However, it is much harder to restore an image to its original condition after making modifications to it with the image editor than it is to restore an album page containing annotated text.

Once you save the changes to the flipbook, you’ve got a digital photo album. I really liked how quickly and easily I was able to create a very attractive photo album for my digital images. I took my digital photos from a trip to Santa Cruz and created a digital album in a few minutes. If you want to present your newly created photo album as a slide show, just click on the Slide button and the program presents your photos as a full screen slide show.

Editing the flipbook is also very easy. See a photo you don’t like, click on the thumbnail of the photo, the entry in the table of contents or the index, then right click and select Delete and the photo disappears from the album together with references in the index and table of contents. You can use the flipbook as a great tool to review your digital photos, check how they display and edit out the duplicate or less desirable shots. To rearrange your photo album, click on FlipTo, Overview and then drag the thumbnail of the picture to the desired location in the album.

FlipAlbum Suite 4.0 also has multi-media capabilities. You can insert video and music into your album pages as well as text. To edit and enhance the photo album pages, resize the images on a page, move images to a different locations on the page, place multiple images or other multi-media objects on the same page.

There are a couple of ways you can share your photo creations with your friends and family. Have them gather around your computer and page through the flipbook or present a slide show. Or upload the flipbook to a Web site where your friends and family from around the world can view your digital images at their leisure. To upload the flipbook to a Web site just click on File on the menu bar and click on Upload to Web, or click on the Upload icon, and follow the instructions. After uploading, you can view your uploaded photo album on the Web, email it to your friends, add your online book to FlipAlbum’s favorites and add your book to www.flipalbum.com for public access. Whomever views the flipbook needs the FlipViewer which can be downloaded free from their Web site. I found uploading the files to the Web site to be a pretty slow process even with a DSL connection, but you can upload the files in the background while you are doing other things on your computer. Obviously the speed of the upload will depend on the size of your images. I uploaded the files onto the www.flipalbum.com Web site, but you can also upload to your own FTP site.

Another option is to export your flipbook onto a CD using the FlipAlbum CD Maker 2.0 plug-in. After you install FlipAlbum CD Maker 2.0 from the FlipAlbum Suite 4.0 CD, the menu bar in FlipAlbum will have "CD Maker" as an additional menu item. To export the flipbook to the CD, click CD Maker on the menu bar and click on Export Current FlipBook to CD. CD Maker 2.0 will launch and a wizard will guide you through the process.

FlipAlbum Suite 4.0 is a great way to create book-like photo albums of your digital images. Using the software is fast, easy and results in a very attractive presentation of your photos that is easy to organize, annotate, edit and present.

Windows 95/98/2000/ME or NT4.0, IBM PC compatible, Pentium, 166 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 15 MB of hard disk space, 16-bit color display adaptor or better, 800x600 pixels screen area.

Prices: FlipAlbum 4.0 $40. FlipAlbum CD Maker 2.0 Plug-in $35. FlipAlbum 4.0 Suite $75. FlipAlbum 4.0 Professional Edition $150.