myPhotoFrame 1.4

Overview

myPhotoFrame is a compact app that pins a floating photo frame to your screen; the photo hovers over other windows in your operating system. You can select a single photo file or an entire folder as the source for the floating photo frame, so it can be customized to show a single static photo or a slideshow of photos. The frame can be resized, rotated, and dragged-and-dropped to hover in any position on the screen, with adjustable transparency.

Installation

Installing myPhotoFrame is about as simple as it gets. We installed version 1.4.0.51 in literally 5 clicks, which included the usual user agreements and folder selection steps. There's no other software bundled with it, so the whole process is done in a matter of seconds. In the final step you'll be asked if you want to continue the free trial or purchase the paid version. After clicking continue, you'll see a sample floating photo frame on your desktop. In our case it was a picture of a lion in a small frame, watermarked with the word “sample.”

Interface

To access the interface you can either right-click on the sample floating frame, or right-click on the tray icon in the bottom right corner of your desktop. Opening the myPhotoFrame Options menu at the top of the context menu provides access to more advanced settings, including frame transparency, position, rotation, and X and Y offset. This is also the menu where you can choose a photo or folder for the source of your floating frame. Overall, the interface is easy-to-access, yet robust enough to make it more than just another desktop extension.

Pros

While the highlight of this app is it's sheer simplicity and uniqueness, here are some of the features we found the most impressive during our test drive of myPhotoFrame:

• Easily Drag and Rearrange Frames – we really liked how easy it is to click on a photo frame and drag it to a desired location without having to open any menus.

• A Variety of Skins Available – more than 17 different photo frame skins available, with more coming soon.

• Rotate, Scale, and Change Transparency – you can quickly rotate any floating frame by clicking on it and holding down while pressing the Shift key and either the Right or Left arrow key. You can also quickly make the floating photo larger or smaller by pressing the + and – keys while clicking on the photo. The ability to control transparency is a nice extra as well.

• Crop Photos to Fit Frames – if you're using a single photo file as the source you can easily zoom into and crop a particular area of the image to fit into the frame of your choice.

Cons

While myPhotoFrame does its job exceedingly well, there are still a couple of shortcomings to talk about:

• 14-Day Trial – the free trial expires after 14 days, at which point the full version costs $9.99.

• No Support for Custom Skins – one feature that would make this software a lot better would be the ability to upload your own frame skins, rather being restricted to the 17 stock skins included with the software.

Alternatives

There aren't many apps that can match the functionality of myPhotoFrame. If you're on Mac OS X you can try DeskFun, or on Android you can try the Floating Image app. However, we should note that neither of these alternatives will provide the exact same capabilities as myPhotoFrame

Conclusion

If you've been looking for an app that will let you keep your most sentimental photos floating with you every step of the way, myPhotoFrame offers a very customizable and comprehensive solution. We think this little app takes your computer desktop one step closer to being a digital representation of a physical office desk, as you would usually see a worker's office desk adorned with framed pictures of their friends and families.