NewSoft Announces a Complete Photo Solution at PMA; Sharing Photos on the Internet is Made Easy with Mr. Photo Gold Edition 2.0

Business Wire, Feb 18, 1999

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 18, 1999--NewSoft America today announced Mr. Photo Gold Edition 2.0, offering a new approach to digital photography.

This software suite not only provides users with tools for editing photos and templates for creative projects, but also offers quick and fun ways to share photos on the Internet. Users can easily create animated GIF slide shows, HTML catalogs, and photo thumbnails to show off their pictures on their personal web sites.

Targeting at home users, small business users and photo enthusiasts, Mr. Photo Gold Edition includes four software programs: Presto! Mr. Photo for managing and sharing photos on the Internet; Presto! PhotoAlbum for creating keepsake electronic albums and scrapbooks; Presto! PhotoComposer for combining photos into photo collages; and Presto! PhotoDesigner for editing photos and creating fun projects.

According to Sam Chang, vice president for NewSoft, there are many software packages that allow users to edit photos or create photo projects, but they overlook the fact that when people take pictures, ultimately they want to share their memories with friends and family. "Mr. Photo Gold Edition is the first digital photography software that emphasizes sharing photos," said Chang. "Photo enthusiasts now are able to e-mail photos, post photos on their personal web sites, print photos from the comfort of their own home, and order T-shirts and mugs with their own photos."

Managing, sharing and printing photos with Mr. Photo

Mr. Photo is an ideal solution for managing and sharing photos and it also provides links to other applications in the package. With its Explorer-like interface, users can easily browse through the hard drive and view thumbnails of all the images in the selected folder. Users can quickly enhance or touch-up photos to make them brighter, darker, sharper, or remove red-eyes. Mr. Photo includes search capabilities by date, file name, and type, as well as by keyword or notes.

Mr. Photo offers many ways for users to show off their pictures. Users not only can e-mail photos, they can also create portable slide shows as self executable files, and create GIF animated slide shows or HTML catalogs for posting on personal web sites. Mr. Photo works with Kodak(R) PhotoNet(R) Online to give users an easy way to upload or download photos, order T-shirts, mugs or other gifts over the Internet. Mr. Photo allows users to print multiple photos at once. PrintFun options support paper templates from Avery(R) and Kodak(R) for printing photos and stickers.

Creating electronic scrapbooks with PhotoAlbum

Presto! PhotoAlbum allows users to create keepsake electronic scrapbooks and photo albums. Users can decorate albums with photos, background textures, frames, clipart and special effects such as shadow and transparency. Albums can be personalized with background music, voice narration, and text captions. Completed albums can be shared by e-mail as a self-executable file or posted to a personal web page.

PhotoComposer for Combining Photos

Presto! Photo Composer is an easy and fun program for combining two photos together. Users can easily create fantasy vacation photos or fun projects like putting a friend's face on Mount Rushmore. The Auto-Trimming function automatically removes the background of a photo. The Quick Scraper and Smart Scraper tools allow users to easily remove parts of the foreground photo. Users can also save the foreground photo as a mask so that it can be used again with other pictures.

Editing Photos with PhotoDesigner

Presto PhotoDesigner is a user-friendly photo editing and painting program with powerful features that both novice and power users will enjoy. The SmartPad is a creativity center that guides users step-by-step to completing creativity projects. With just a click of a button or drag-and-drop, users can easily edit images, touch-up photos, add special effects or create fun projects such as greeting cards, calendars and nametags.

For power users, the program includes a full set of drawing and painting tools to create fantastic drawings, sketches, illustrations, logos, and web graphics. Supporting both multi-layer and multi-object image construction, all of the effects or changes to an image can be done in layers or objects, without changing the original image. As a result, no matter how many times a user edits the image, it will not affect its quality.

System Requirements: IBM compatible PC with Pentium processor or higher, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0, 16 MB RAM (32 MB recommended), minimum 60 MB free disk space, CD-ROM drive, VGA monitor capable of displaying 16-bit color. A TWAIN-compliant digital camera or scanner, color printer and modem with Internet access are recommended.

Pricing and Availability

Mr. Photo Gold Edition 2.0 is available through the company's national distribution channel and on the Internet with a suggested retail price of $99.95. Some of the components in the package will be available to download on the Internet. NewSoft America, Inc. is located at 47470 Seabridge Driver, Fremont, CA 94538. For addition product information contact the company at (510) 445-8600 or visit the company's web site at www.newsoftinc.com.