What is Digital Media Software?

Why have quality photo/video editing software applications been reserved for industry professionals? By the end of 2007, 46 percent of households in the United States had at least one cell phone with a camera. With half of the country owning phones with this capability we don’t even want to guess how many of them have point-and-shoot digital cameras in their homes. Then add how many have digital point-and-shoot video cameras. Let’s just cut it short and say nearly everyone has the capability to shoot digital photographs and video at a moment’s notice.

All we need now is an easy-to-use software package that allows us to perform complex photo and video edits on all this footage. We don’t have time to learn complex applications like Apple Final Cut and Adobe Creative Suite. Give us something we can use right out of the box. This is where Digital Media Software comes in.

Developers like Corel, Apple and Adobe have released home media studio applications designed with the average consumer in mind. These products are easy-to-use and offer professional grade editing tools. They can all edit both photos and videos, and a few even offer audio organizing and editing tools. Digital Media Software helps you organize, edit, publish and share your memories.

What to Look for in Digital Media Software

A good Digital Media Software suite should be able to accommodate your photos and videos. Tools and features that allow you to easily clean-up and edit your media are a must. If there is an audio file organizer/editor, that is a plus. If there are templates that allow you to create custom photo albums and videos; that is also a plus. Here are a few other things we considered while reviewing these products:

Ease of Use
Ease of use is not just how easy the software is to navigate. It is a combination of several factors like importing photo and video files, applying filters and effects, using templates, etc. If an application is truly easy to use, all of these things are easy to do for the average consumer.

Features
You already know these applications can edit video and photos. What else can they do? Do they offer an organizer for your albums, do they integrate well with each other, can you apply third party plug-ins, etc? These features are the extras in an application that help separate them from the competition.

Photo Capture
Getting your photographs from a camera to a computer should be easy. Your software shouldn’t be the limitation. Importing from digital cameras, flash drives, or even scanners may be offered in your chosen photo editing software.

Video Capture
Capturing video goes beyond which device the media is being imported from. There are several options to consider in this category including being able to put limits on the file size, whether the video was shot in analog or HD, and whether or not you can capture video from the web. Take these options into consideration when you are choosing a video editor.

Exporting/Sharing
What do you do with the finished product? You have taken the time to edit your photos and videos, now how do you share them? You can print photos, save them in PDF packages, or even export them to photo services to have them printed professionally. Share your videos online at popular sites like YouTube and Facebook, or simply burn them to DVD and share them with your family.

Disc Authoring
Go beyond just burning a video file to a DVD. Many of these applications will allow you to create custom menus complete with music and chapters. Some are even capable of burning Blu-ray discs so you can share your high-definition videos.

Photo Editing
As consumer level photo editors, these applications will provide basic tools like cropping, straightening and red eye removal. Some also provide advanced editing tools like cloning, layers and advanced selection tools.

Video Editing
Video editing tools should allow you to trim or divide scenes, capture still images from a video, and stabilize shaky camera shots. They should also include filters, effects and audio files that can be combined with your video shots to produce fun and entertaining videos.

Supported Platform
Operating systems are in a seemingly constant state of change. Make sure you know whether or not your operating system is compatible with a software application before you make a purchase.

Help and Support
Bells and whistles don’t mean much if you can’t figure out how to use them. Luckily, each of these applications offers product support through a variety of means including telephone support, tutorials, and even live online chat support.

Combine all of these elements and you’ll have a friendly, easy-to-use Digital Media Studio that allows you to organize and edit photos and videos; preserving your most important memories for years to come.

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