Life Poster Maker
Reviewed March 2008

What’s It Do?

Creates photo collages, adds, manipulates, and enhances photos, and creates larger-than-life posters.


Does it do what it promises?

Reviewer 1: More or less. While I was able to successfully create several collages and posters, I experienced some problems with the photo captioning operation.

Reviewer 2: Life Poster Maker claims to help you to easily make photo collages and posters. It accomplishes this with simplicity and ease.

Reviewer 3: Yes. With this program, one can put together collages or posters of photos in just about any kind of layout desired. To get started, there are many preset templates; however, creating a layout is not really complicated. Tools provided in this uncomplicated program allow modification and construction of projects. The Web site demo gives a good overview.

Reviewer 4: Yes, but with some limitations not adequately explained on the Web site.


Was it easy to install?

Reviewer 1: Yes, I had no problems with installation or registration.

Reviewer 2: Installation was fast and easy.

Reviewer 3: The installation was very easy and quick. I was able to place the program where I wanted to. When it was finished, a small warning appeared which applies to Vista users but I cannot comment on any Vista peculiarities. Until purchase of a license, the program is limited to an 8" x 10" proof of any collage.

Reviewer 4: Yes. While it is a relatively sizeable download of 6.9MB, it installed easily using intuitive point and click wizards.


Good Points

Reviewer 1: The program has many preset templates and features free-form collage style, flexible editing options including photo cropping, photo shapes, background colors or image, export to .jpg, and the ability to order posters from within program.

Reviewer 2: One of the key characteristics that I look for in a program such as this is that its controls be “intuitive”; Life Poster Maker meets this mark. Start by selecting a prefabricated template or custom-fabricating one. Then select the photos to populate the poster and simply double-click on the space where the photo will go and a directory menu pops up allowing a choice of the desired photo. Move to a different space if desired with a simple drag and drop.
Modify the layout and borders easily and when finished, print out the poster or upload it to the company’s sister site for printing at a price ranging from $11.95 for an 8x10 poster to $24.95 for a 24x36 inch poster (plus shipping).

Reviewer 3: The interface for Life Poster Maker is intuitive and straightforward. Once I realized that I should be using the "Thumbnails" view in Explorer, I found that it is easy to bring pictures into my projects. Once there, I could move, resize, flip, tilt, frame, and otherwise manipulate them until I was satisfied with them. One tool that I used frequently was the “Crop Area > Crop Position" item. This allowed me to set up a number of effects that I was quite proud of, in fact. What is interesting about this tool, as with the others, is that the original photo is just a source for the Poster Maker, but it is in no way altered or changed. For example, in one situation, I had a photo of a number of people who were scattered around in the photograph, but I wanted to make a selection of four children and build a small photo gallery of the head and shoulders of the four. In all cases, the original photograph is the same one, but for each photo cell, (containing one of the children), I was able to use this Crop tool to select the portion of the photograph which had the child that I was adding. I could move the four of them around to any position I wanted in the collage. I could zoom in or out as needed, so that the four of them were about the same size, and so on. The final collage was saved in a couple of different formats on my drive, and the original photo still exists somewhere else, quite unaffected. In a different case, I was able to take a view of a long road going down, then up, a distant hill. When I "expanded" the picture upwards to get the effect of a long road, only the foreground portion of the photo fit into the cell. However, using the Crop tool, I was able to take the road itself and it now stretches up the side of the collage, from the bottom corner, up, on and away.

I always find support to be an important factor in considering whether or not to purchase any software program. Usually, support and product quality are closely linked. Although the support staff hours are indicated on the site, I was very pleasantly surprised to have a response to a question I sent in the evening within minutes.

Reviewer 4: If you are familiar with those picture frames you can purchase which are matted so that you can display a variety of photographs in numerous shapes and sizes, then you are already familiar with the basic of this program. Life Poster Maker allows one to rummage through that new electronic shoebox which we call our digital images file and select pictures to display in the electronic version of one of those aforementioned collage-type frames. In the case of Life Poster Maker; however, there is no limit to a size of the frame, the sizes and shapes of the individual mats, nor even the color or layout of the mats or frame.

And if the above do not suit your needs or creativity you can also create your own. You will then be taken to the next window where you can place your selected pictures in your template using the drag and drop method and once you have determined the placement you want the work can then be enhanced further with a variety of picture effects and enhancements including adding captions. In fact, there is even an enhancement that allows adding a calendar to the layout.

From here it is simply a matter of printing out the collage as a frameable poster or maybe simply a scrapbook page. The program’s best feature is its ease of use. While there is an excellent online help file as well as excellent tutorials, I began using the program immediately without consulting either, and I had a very professional looking design finished within about thirty minutes—actually only about fifteen minutes if you do not count for my obsessive revising of my design. This program is really this intuitive and even one who has never used any type of photo editing or graphic design tool before you will have no problem become somewhat of an expert in a relative short time using this tool. Support is offered via email as well as through long distance telephone. I found the program to work flawlessly, using no excessive amount of resources under normal circumstances (see below). All in all it is a program that performed easily and well. There is a free fully functioning evaluation copy; however; it does place a text watermark on any images created.


Weak Points?

Reviewer 1: The biggest problem I experienced was with the photo captioning operation. This section was very clunky and did not work well for me. It was a “one-shot” process. The first time on a photo, the caption operation worked fine, as long as I did not move out of this specific operation. It allowed me to select font, color, size and justification and change it if I did not like the look. The problems started when I tried to change the caption after moving on to the next photo. I could select the photo I wanted to recaption but when I moved my focus (clicked inside the text box) the focus would change to a different photo. I did find a work around for this by double clicking the photo which brings up a “save” property sheet and then canceling that. Only then would the focus stay on the proper photo. That proved to be of little help though because I could not change the caption I had applied previously. Often, the program just removed the caption entirely and would not allow me to apply a new one. Another shortfall is that there is no “undo” function that I could find. If I accidentally dropped a picture in the wrong field that already had a photo, Life Poster Maker replaced the existing photo with the new one. This required removing the errant photo and reloading the frames again with the proper ones. It would have been nice to have an Undo and Redo button to step back and then continue.

Reviewer 2: When a photo in a collage is dragged and dropped onto another photo, the original image disappears. It would be nice if there were a dialog box, which popped up asking whether to delete the original image or swap it with another. This was only an issue for me when my poster was full; otherwise, I simply moved my original image to a blank space before moving the replacement image there, and then moved the original to its desired location. Another enhancement I would like to see would be the ability to equalize the “brightness” (preferably “gamma”) of the individual photos. I found when printing photos without borders that the differences in brightness/darkness between the photos were distracting. I am a bit torn on this issue, because Life Poster Maker does what it tries to do very well and it is a slippery slope to “bloatware” as features outside of one’s area of expertise.

Reviewer 3: Unless one has a printer capable of producing oversized formats, it is clear that these carefully constructed posters cannot be printed. To help solve this, Life-Poster Maker has teamed up with another company, Great Mind Media, who will print and ship posters that are uploaded to them. This is available through the File > Order Poster item. I was a bit surprised, though, to find so many links to other programs of the developers under the Help > About Menu item, as well as a link to another product, directly under the Help Menu itself. My suggestion would be that, if they feel the need to advertise their other products within this program, they could offer a "Links" choice, perhaps under the File Menu, or perhaps under the Help Menu, or preferably in the Help File itself. But the "About" item should really be about Life Poster Maker -- not about a lot of other programs. Apart from this quibble, I enjoy Life Poster Maker.

Reviewer 4: Maybe the most serious weakness in this program is in its very name: Life Poster Maker. It does not, in fact, make posters nor even provide the means to make posters without additional expense. The program creates poster size images that can be printed out on a printer capable of printing 24x30 paper, not commonly available in the home or small business. The image could be broken into 8x12 fragments and then glued a poster board to create the entire image, but I would hardly call this method as producing anything closely resembling “suitable for framing” as promised on the Life Poster Maker Web site. What the program does provide, recommend, and in fact use as images for its screenshots of completed posters, is a link to another company, Great Mind Media, where the poster image can be uploaded and the poster printed and shipped for $24.95 each. So, for the cost of the actual program itself which is also $24.95, nice design templates can be created to view digital images or print them out on sizes most practically ranging from 8x10 to 11xz14, the size of standard copy paper. This is not what the program would seem to promise. Secondly, while the program comes with 20 virtual frames to create designs, additional sets of frames are sold separately at $7.95 per set. I am less than happy with any company that seems to sell its product as a means of selling additional products to go with it. Finally, the technical support offered is lacking at best. There is an email link buried within the online help files but it offers no indication of turn-around time for help. I sent two “test” support requests, neither ever answered. While this program is easy and fun to use, I see very little practical use and thus it is over-priced at $24.95.


Other Comments

Reviewer 1: This application worked fine and was fun to use when I did not attempt to use the captioning process. When I first encountered the problem, I emailed tech support but did not receive a reply after 48 hours. I will find another way to “get my product” and move on. Depending on the need, I may just give up on the problematic application and find another solution.

Lincoln Beach Software, providers of Life Poster Maker, responded: I answer all tech support emails that come to my desk. Email has gotten so unreliable lately with so many spam filters involved, it’s hard to say where an email was lost. Don’t know if my spam filter nagged their message or if theirs snagged my reply. I’ve checked on the captioning issue and wasn’t having the problem, but will look at it again.

Reviewer 2: Life Poster Maker caused me look at my collection of family photos in a new way. When I was setting up a poster, I began thinking about my photos in themes as they relate to other photos in the collage. It stirred my creative juices and had me thinking differently than if I was printing individual photos.

Reviewer 3: This is a program that is fun to use. I use programs for work, to improve some aspect or another of my computering, to surf, or to do family or community-based "projects." I certainly enjoy all of these things that I do on the computer, but they are kind of "serious". This one is just “fun”.

Reviewer 4: Since first writing this review, I had the opportunity to talk to my daughter-in-law who is an inveterate scrapbooker. When I mentioned this program several months ago, she downloaded the evaluation version, loved it, and has since bought the program. When I told her of my review and my evaluation, she took me to task for not seeing the “awesome” possibilities of this program for making scrapbook pages. So, with my daughter-in-law’s recommendation in mind, I will amend my original comments by suggesting that maybe the product should be called Life Scrapbook Maker as apparently its ability in that regard is, again, “awesome”!


Will you continue to use it?

Reviewer 1: I will keep it installed in my “photo toolbox” for now, pending a solution to the captioning issue since it is fun and easier to use than other programs that I have tried to accomplish the same thing. It’s a dedicated piece of software for a specific task. If I get a solution to the captioning issue it will be a great little application.

Reviewer 2: Yes, definitely.

Reviewer 3: Yes, I certainly will.

Reviewer 4: No.

OPERATING SYSTEMS USED IN THIS REVIEW
Windows XP Pro, XP Home

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