VideoBrush Photographer

Rating:
Updated: 20 Sep 1999 at 5:00 GMT, by James Rigg [Panoguide]

VideoBrush Photographer looks great when you compare its specification to its competitors and on the strength of that one can't help feeling that VideoBrush (now Pictureworks since the technology was bought by them) have perhaps underestimated the potential of their software. It's not until you use and test the software that the truth comes out.

The interface is clearly intended to be simple, intuitive and fun (complete with sound effects and animations) but doesn't quite achieve the simplicity and colourful yet uncluttered interfaces of Quickstitch 360 and PhotoVista. Those who dislike the sound effects can turn them off.

Strangely despite the options menus that allow everything including the degree of blending to be controlled, the most critical aspect of stitching was overlooked completely - you cannot adjust the alignment of the images at all. This means that if Photographer doesn't get it right there's nothing you can do except throw your pictures/scans away and do something else. When I tried it I was not convinced that Photographer was finding the best stitching points, but was powerless to tweak it... pretty frustrating.

The performance tests indicate that for simple non-wide angle cameras Photographer can perform well, but it had problems smoothly blending the woodland sequence at the Finchampstead Ridges. The specification says "not optimised for wide-angle nor fisheye" yet Photographer is supposed to handle lenses down to 13mm. The tests tell the truth - Photographer does not handle wide angle lenses at all.

* The VideoBrush software was bought by PictureWorks Inc, which was subsequently bought by Interactive Pictures Inc (aka iPIX). iPIX have since dropped the Videobrush products from their product range. For more information see the PictureWorks information on the iPIX website - www.ipix.com/products/support/pictureworks/index.....

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