GSA Photo Manager 1.6.5

Overview

GSA Photo Manager is a photo organizer that lets you add your best photos be pointing the file manager to the folder where they are stored. The photos will then be added in a list. Hovering over a photo will bring up its picture thumbnail. Photos can be renamed in batches, copied to a separate folder for editing while keeping the original untouched, burned to a CD, used in a slideshow, or with other useful photo-focused features.

Installation

The installation only needs 8.6 MB of file space to install. A Start menu folder is named and you can change the name if you wish or not create a Start menu item at all. A desktop icon and quick launch icon can be added. There is also an option to add a Windows Firewall rule which is quite unusual for a photo application. Why would it need to create an exception to get around the Windows firewall? No explanation is given during the install process for this unusual item, however pictures can be used as an HTML file and this can be uploaded to a web server so perhaps this is the reason.

Interface

The interface is pretty packed with GS Photo Manager. The large buttons at the top are the easiest to access. Adding a file or directory with images just takes clicking on the Add Images button, and navigating to the location of the image or folder using the excellent custom file manager included. Hovering over the file name will bring up a thumbnail of the image. The demo is restricted to only being able to import the first 10 images though.

The main picture options are at the bottom where one or more images can be used to generate some HTML code for use on a web page which includes those images. With this option, the file sizes can be specified to ensure the picture will be display as intended on the web page. Images can be burned to a CD. A slideshow can be created on the fly.

Once using the interface, it is actually quite easy to get used to working with it.

Pros

• Organize your photos
• Add photos from a complete folder or several folders where they are stored
• Copy photos over to a separate folder to be worked on preserving the original version
• Rename pictures in a batch
• Re-size images to different sizes
• Create some HTML code automatically to feature selected images
• Create a slideshow featuring selected images, complete with fade in and fade out

Cons

The demo is restricted to only being able to import the first 10 images, with limited saving options as well. Not really enough to give the software a full test. The number of reminder pop-ups that this is a demo version is annoying.

Alternatives

To work with photos to edit the EXIF meta data, a good application that could be a companion app to this one is Photo EXIF Manager.

Conclusion

GS Photo Manager is very restrictive in the demo version with an annoying constant pop-up to remind you that it is a restricted version. When actually using the package with its 10 image maximum, it is easy to see the photos you wish to use, make adjustments, and perform certain actions with them.