ThumbsPlus

From Cerious Software
 

What's It Do?

ThumbsPlus is a highly customizable image database/thumbnails/graphics editor application that makes it easy to catalog, and locate, maintain and modify all your graphics and multimedia files.


Does it do what it promises?

Reviewer 1: Yes, it is exactly as it is described.

Reviewer 2: Yes, and then some. This is an excellent all-around graphics handling program.

Reviewer 3: It's exactly as the Web site says. It's easy to use and find graphics files to catalog and maintain your collection.

Reviewer 4: Yes; in fact, it did more than I was expecting with the ability to manage fonts. It was quick in displaying my pictures as thumbnails.

Reviewer 5: I really didn't understand what it was supposed to do, so I don't know if it does.

Reviewer 6: Yes it does, and then some. Unlike most PC applications on the market, ThumbsPlus is an industrial strength well-designed application clearly developed by someone with extensive software engineering experience, and even rarer, someone who can successfully document his work, so that it can not only be understood - but enjoyed - by the users.


Was it easy to install?

Reviewer 1: Yes.

Reviewer 2: Yes.

Reviewer 3: Yes, standard Windows installer.

Reviewer 4: Yes, I just let it install with defaults and it installed without a hitch.

Reviewer 5: I had no problems

Reviewer 6: Yes easy straightforward install on Win 2000 system .


Good points?

Reviewer 1: Properties for each picture provide a lot of details, including dates, embedded information such as exposure time, shutter speed and F-stop, and add keywords. Can immediately make wallpaper out of any photo or run a sideshow. Its strength is in its cataloging feature.

Reviewer 2: It was extremely easy to scan my computer and create thumbnails of images stored over multiple partitions. Basic editing such as rotation and image cropping can be done from within the program, no need for an external editor. Images stored on CD can be thumbnailed and cataloged. The thumbnails are available in this program, even when the CD is not in the CD drive. This is excellent for those like me who may not remember which Set of photos is on which CD. There are certain editing chores I like to do in Photoshop Elements. It was simple to assign a graphic type such as JPEG to use Elements as its editor, instead of the default Microsoft Picture Editor.

Reviewer 3: There's almost too many to list. I'm a very part-time and chaotic digital picture photographer and hadn't organized my pictures very well. ThumbsPlus is great, as it will scan a local or networked disk in the background and create very fast thumbnails. It can even scan a CD-ROM and store the thumbnails for viewing, even if the CD is off-line. The thumbnails are scalable, in case you want to view more or less pictures per slide, and the overall program is highly customizable: menus, toolbars, colors for folders with pictures in them, etc.

Reviewer 4: I like the interface. If you are familiar with Microsoft's new Office Picture Manager from Office 2003, then it will look very familiar. I especially like the colored folders in the tree view. It made it very easy to see which folders I had opened with ThumbsPlus. I also like the info pane that showed the information about a graphics file including camera information like F-stop and exposure time for my digital photos. It is very fast in displaying the images when moving between folders.

Reviewer 5: It does make it easier to sort through large numbers of graphic files once it scans them all in.

Reviewer 6: The Hitchhiker's (User's) Guide documentation is exceptional . it is clear and concise and written by someone-surely the program's author-who loved doing it, knew the program from a user's point of view, and really cared about the user success, the best I've seen in the past 10 years. Design and functionality are outstanding, just when needed by the burgeoning proliferation of digital photos. Clearly an industrial-strength program, not a toy as most PC applications today tend to be. The exceptional on line tutorial is one of the best I've ever seen. A great professional on line problem reporting template although there is no stated response time and duration of support.


Weak points?

Reviewer 1: It crashed whenever I tried to run Editor (paintbrush icon). Redeye reduction is not one of its better points. It's not the best program for editing photos.

Reviewer 2: Not many. Though some of the options available to change are quite technical, the help files do a good job of explaining them, and more info is available on the company's Web site. I simply did not find anything weak in my use of this program.

Reviewer 3: I had to stretch to find one. However, for digital photo hacks like myself, a "beginner" mode for menus would reduce the complexity. The product has more functionality than I can use; however, a professional photographer would find much value in the features it provides.

Reviewer 4: I could have used more in-depth help, or at least some tutorials on how to do common tasks like removing red eye. Perhaps adding a task pane ala Word or Excel might help. The toolbar icons could also use some work. It was difficult to tell what a button did without either showing the text or waiting for the tool tip to show up.

Reviewer 5: It needs descriptions that laymen can understand. I was at a complete loss as to what to do with this.

Reviewer 6: The price ($90 plus $22 documentation plus shipping and handling for Pro and $50 plus $22 documentation, plus shipping and handling for Standard) is far too much when compared to the competition. Picasa, which has huge marketing momentum, right now, cost $29 for CD delivered. ThumbsPlus urgently needs to do a side-by-side comparison with Picasa to identify the delta function contained in ThumbsPlus and seriously consider what its marketing pitch would be to the potential customer. The target user for this application is never explicitly addressed. Clearly, it would be someone trying to manage a large collection of digital photos, but the program's functionality and cost goes well beyond the needs of the casual user. The richness of functionality - trying to cover too many bases - is great if needed, but is more than most need. This is ameliorated by the great documentation, but it has to drive up the cost/price.

Cerious replied:

The price indicated by this reviewer is incorrect and should be:

ThumbsPlus Standard: US $44.95 for electronic distribution.
ThumbsPlus Standard shipped: US $54.95
ThumbsPlus Pro: US $84.95 for electronic distribution.
ThumbsPlus Pro shipped: US $94.95

There are site licensing options also found here: http://www.cerious.com/pricing.shtml


Other comments?

Reviewer 1: The program allows you to create a Web page gallery. Select a photo for emailing was just two clicks. The program recognizes various email applications, depending on what's loaded on the computer. It recognizes Mozilla, Netscape, and Outlook, which were on my computer. You can convert files to one of 12 file formats and processed files in batches.

Reviewer 2: None stated.

Reviewer 3: This program does two things that cover probably 99% of what users want to do with digital pictures: catalog and organize them easily; and, manipulate the images as required (crop, rotate, scale, resize). It's not a "click here," program for users who need their hand held; instead, it's a cool tool that will "just do it" for most of your picture needs.

Reviewer 4: I think if you've got a digital cameras, then this application will give you most, if not all, the functions you need to manage and edit your photos. As a bonus, you get a font manager that shows you your fonts without having to open them. Even if you have a dedicated image editor, this is a good addition for photo management.

Reviewer 5: I started the program and had it scan some of my graphic folders, which takes a long time, and then wondered what to do with it. This was the hardest program that I had to review. I just couldn't figure out what to do with it that I do with any of my graphics.

Reviewer 6: in the on line tutorial, the Back/Next buttons were off the bottom of the screen . I suggest they be put on top or both top and bottom. I never could figure out how they use "resize" in the red eye fix dialog. It was not covered as far as I could determine in the documentation. The size of the circle went down during use, which I never understood nor could find any way to reverse.


Will you continue to use it?

Reviewer 1: Not sure yet.

Reviewer 2: Yes. This has become an often-used tool for me and I think I would have a hard time working with my digital images without it in the future.

Reviewer 3: Yes.

Reviewer 4: Yes.

Reviewer 5: Yes, to help find pictures

Reviewer 6: Yes, definitely. This program is a gem and just what's needed to manage the recent abundance of digital photos. It will surely be a horse race with Picasa, which I now use, but it's documentation is a big plus. Picasa has almost none, and I really appreciate its capability to annotate the pictures, and its obvious professional depth

Operating System Used: All Panel Members reported using Windows XP for this evaluation with the exception of Reviewer 6 who used Windows 2000.

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