Want to hang the photos of your holiday on your blog or web page in a well-organised and unique way? If so, AAA Photo Album can help, as it is specially designed for the creation of online photo albums in HTML. The best thing about the software is that you don't need to be an expert in HTML programming in order to use it. You simply select the photos that you wish to include in the gallery, choose a frame and a colour scheme, and the program magically generates the necessary code for you in seconds.

The images can be organised in a highly efficient manner, with the use of thumbnails making it easy for your visitors to browse through what you've got. Personally, I'd have liked to see at least some basic image editing features in AAA Photo Album, but as a tool for quickly publishing pictures to the web, it does its job with aplomb.

Download AAA Photo Album 2.10 in Softonic

There are many ways to share photos with your beloved ones, both offline and online, but few of them are as spectacular as PhotoSynth.

PhotoSynth is presented by Microsoft as an innovative and original way of publishing and sharing your photos on the Web. It's as easy to use as other photo sharing websites, only that its photo player includes special 3D features that makes PhotoSynth especially suitable for panoramas.

After logging in with your Windows Live ID and creating a PhotoSynth profile, you're ready to start using the program. Use the client to choose and upload photos, and then check your creation on the web browser (you'll need a special plug-in for this, but this is automatically installed with PhotoSynth). You'll be able to navigate the panorama in a three-dimensional environment by dragging and clicking your mouse around the stitched photos.

While Photosynth is definitely an easy yet impressive way to share your pictures online - especially with the full-screen viewer - it lacks all the social tools you find in other similar websites, such as being able to rate pictures or leave comments, just to mention a couple of them.

With PhotoSynth you can create, publish and share online your photos in a nicely design interface, with special support for 3D panoramas.

Download Photosynth 2.0.1403.6 in Softonic

When it comes to photo viewers there are many alternatives to choose from. I've always had something of a crush on Picasa and this new version has made it my absolute favorite.

The brand new Picasa 3.0 is still at a beta stage, but you can already get a glimpse of all the eyecandy it brings to your desktop. The interface remains pretty similar to the previous one, but has been enriched with new options to manage and edit your photos, as well as some new ways to show them off.

Among other features, Picasa now includes a folder manager to handle your folders right on the hard drive, a screen capturing tool, an improved and extended photo editing menu (with new filters and effects) and new exciting options for your creativity, such as creating a movie with your photos.

Picasa now lets you manage your pictures in more comfortable way, both online – by automatically syncing your photo library with Picasa web albums – and offline, with an awesome photo viewer you can use instead of the default Windows image viewer.

The all-new Picasa has successfully completed what it seemed a difficult task: improving a software app that was already very good.

Download Picasa 3.0 Beta in Softonic

Most multimedia publishing programs only allow you to publish one type of format be it photos, video or audio - Gallery Designer allows you to publish all 3 at once and does all the HTML coding for you.

Everything is explained and taken step by step until your gallery is online with no further effort required on your part. To get going, first of all you're asked which image files you want to upload. Secondly, you're asked what title you want to give the album and the layout parameters - how big, what style etc. Then, you simply click "Build" and the software whizzes into action building a perfect HTML gallery, complete with thumbnails, for publishing on the net.

Once ready, you are given detailed control over exactly how you want the gallery to look such as by changing the thumbnails to full image size, the titles, layout gallery style, border colors etc. If you see another gallery online that you like developed using Gallery Designer, you can even borrow that template or alternatively, design your own.

With support for for a wide range of video and photo formats and even support for text files, Gallery Designer takes the pain out of coding your own online gallery.

Download Gallery Designer 1.0.9 in Softonic

Kodak Easyshare is a digital photo organizer which gives you access to your Kodak Gallery and make use of Kodak's project and print services.

You'll find it offers what you expect of a digital photo organizer, such as being able to save your photos in albums and show them in calendar view, adding tags, easy transferring from your camera and sharing them with others via email or burning on a CD. You can also create a little slideshow to view albums in full screen.

I did find the application a little counter-intuitive, partly due to the color of the interface, which makes it difficult to set buttons apart. A simple action like adding an album, wasn't easy as it should be.

Although limited, the range of editing tools available was OK. You can enhance your picture, set the balance and add a few effects to make a little snazzier. Both the tips and online guide provided by Kodak are thorough.

You can use Kodak Easyshare without actually having a Kodak account, however you'll find many places in the application where it encourages you to do so. Your use of the application will also obviously be limited if you don't have one as you won't be able to print photos or create projects.

Kodak Easyshare is a digital photo manager, that gives access to Kodak services online.

Download Kodak Easyshare 7.0 in Softonic

When you live and work away from your home town (or even your home country), as many people do these days, it can sometimes be difficult to stay in touch with the folks back there.

One of the best ways to keep your friends and family posted on what you're up to is to share your photos with them. This can get a little boring for them though if you're just emailing them the shots, so it's a good idea to create a web gallery to hang your pictures in a more elegant fashion.

If you don't your HTML from your elbow then PhotoOnWeb provides a good way of creating a cool online gallery with ease. All you need to do is load your photos, select a template then publish the gallery on your PC, on your FTP server or on the server provided with the software.

If you've never worked with servers before then don't worry because the program pretty much takes care of the nuts and bolts for you. Although not as powerful as using the Flash authoring tool, it's a great free tool for anyone who wants to communicate with home without actually saying anything.

Download PhotoOnWeb 0.8.6 in Softonic

Publishing photos to the web has to be one of the biggest areas of software development but many fall short of the mark in terms of usability and speed of use.

Photo! Web Album offers and easy way to create photo galleries for the web with an emphasis on being user friendly and usable. This makes Photo! Web Album ideal for beginners who aren't looking for anything that looks great but works quickly and in a straightforward manner. From the moment of installation of Photo! Web Album, you're asked how you would like to post your photos to the web via a built-in wizard which makes it simple to use.

There's no need to worry about hosting either - Photo! Web Album allows you to share your photo albums on the developer's own website although how much space you've got here is not clear but it's likely it's not particularly generous. What's nice though is that by using the Photo! Web Album service, you can edit your photo presentation and online creations from the Photo! Web Album desktop interface. All changes are made in realtime so there's no waiting around for the server to catch up with edits you make. Photo! Web Album also lets you add subfolders of photos related to another subject which means that it's actually a better way to organise your photos than even Picassa.

Basic photo editor, uploader and hosting in one, Photo! Web Album is a competitive solution for novices or those new to photo uploading.

Download Photo! Web Album 1.1 in Softonic

With the Hofmann Digital Album you can quickly and easily compose and arrange your digital album or digital poster (with a wooden frame) using your own photos or any image.

Its use is completely instinctive and simple. Any PC user can quickly manage it without any previous training. At the same time it is a very powerful program that will allow you to do in a few clicks practically anything you can imagine with your photos like improving the brightness and contrast, cropping or enlarging the images as you prefer, changing them to black and white or sepia tone, correcting the "red eye" effect and making use of the automatic improvement for each photo.

In order to design your album the program offers plenty of covers, layouts, backgrounds, text options and functions. It really is child´s play. If you are using the program for the first time, you should simply try everything out. There are no wrong choices and you will soon control all functions. Have a look at the "Quick guide" and the "User´s manual" in the icons bar, which may be helpful, too.

You can then send your project via Internet and in a few days you will receive, at the address you indicated, your Hofmann Digital Album printed and bound in high quality finish or your Hofmann Digital Poster together with a beautiful wooden frame.

Download Hofmann Digital Album 5.8 in Softonic

These days, when it comes to publishing your own photo albums and sharing them with your friends there are many programs to choose from. JALbum is a free and intuitive tool to edit your photos and prepare good looking albums.

Although the interface feels a little crowded it will provide a good way of exploring your folders for pictures and quickly selecting the ones you want to put into your album. JALbum also includes a good set of editing tools to tweak your pictures a bit, like removing red eyes, blurring or sharpening.

However the strongest feature of the application is certainly making albums. This is very easy to do and JAlbum comes with a number of styles to start out with. You can also download more skins from the developer's website. Once you're album is done, you can either upload it to your JAlbum account, if you have one, or to any other server if you have the login details.

With a good set of editing tools, and a straightforward process, the free JAlbum makes for a great way of creating photo albums to share with your friends.

Download JAlbum 8.0.9 in Softonic

If you'd like to publish your pics online using one of those trendy Flash galleries but you have no idea about Flash, Gallerymanager is the tool you need.

This program automatically generates a Flash website that you can use to display your images on the Internet. There's no need to code anything in Flash or any other complicated programming language; you only have to select the pictures you want to show, choose the layout, add some optional background music and upload the whole project to your web space via FTP.

The downside to it, besides the obvious fact that you need an FTP space, is that the program, at least in my opinion, is not as easy to use as it seems at first sight. There are too many fields to be filled in and too many parameters to be tweaked. Being a program intended to users without any technical knowledge, I think the program should try to make the whole process a bit more graphical and more intuitive. Also, there are only two templates available.

Gallerymanager is the easiest way to create Flash photo galleries to publish online; it's a bit limited, but you don't need any Flash knowledge.

Download Gallerymanager 2.0 in Softonic

Let’s say you need to make a presentation which includes associated text and photos, and you would like a more homely design than the professional, at-times flat PowerPoint slideshow. eXPress Collage Suite might help, as it allows you to create simple presentations as e-books, collage albums, or even calendars.

The outcome will appear rather amateur, but depending on its purposes, can be what you are looking for home-made feeling presentation. The way you carry on your project is also a bit rudimentary and icons look a bit messy. The general rule to follow is that you can import images, text and audio file simply by clicking the import button on the left menu. Change the layout with the menu below and apply changes to see a preview of your document. The GUI can be a bit confusing and there’s plenty of room for usability improvements.

Althought eXpress Collage wouldn’t be suitable for professional purposes, it can be interesting for amateur photo albums, calendasr, eBooks and collages as it lets you create for free virtual books, to present texts and images in a different way.

Download eXpress Collage Suite 5.0 in Softonic

Long gone are the days when you took photos, printed them and kept them in your photo album. With the advent of digital cameras, our approach to pictures has completely changed. Creating, editing, publishing and sharing are now part of our daily photographic experience. JetPhoto Studio is an application to handle digital snaps on your PC and the net.

JetPhoto Studio will import pictures from your camera as soon as it is connected to your PC. We like how the main interface includes a calendar to let you browse photos by date. Jet Photo Studio has fairly basic editing tools, and functions like crop, sepia, black and white, image contrast, and auto enhancing, which will allow you to personalize your photos. You can also batch resize your photos and protect them with a watermark. JetPhoto Studio also allows you to rate photos by adding a star next to the ones you prefer. You can set tags to quickly identify related pictures, but annoyingly you’ll have to create new ones for each individual album.

On the multimedia side, JetPhoto Studio gives you a number of tools to help you play around with your pictures. Making screensavers, wallpapers and slide-shows is extremely easy and quick. You can also create two types of Flash movies, stand-alone or deluxe, the first being a typical slide show, and the second showing an animated thumbnail list of your selected images. The only downside is that you can’t set the types of animations and speed of transitions.

You can use JetPhoto Studio to send images, via MMS or infrared, to your friends’ mobiles, yet however exciting this sounds, the feature is not really up to standards. You’ll actually need to know your friend’s mobile brand and exact model and even if you do, there’s no telling whether the service will work in your country. We found that JetPhoto Studio did not support this feature in Spain.

Another promising feature is locating photos thanks to GPS. If you have a GPS receiver and Google Earth set up on your PC, this feature is especially easy to use. Connect your receiver to your PC, pick the model and your time zone, and launch Google Earth. Your selected pictures will automatically be tagged with the desired locations in your Google Earth. If you don’t have a GPS receiver, you can also point the photo location on a map. However this feature seems prone to bugs and we did not manage to generate maps properly.

JetPhoto Studio allows you to quickly upload images to the online photo sharing service Flickr, and it’s very easy to order quality printed copies via PrintExpress. The JetPhoto Server tool is also a good way for anybody with some scripting knowledge to upload and edit their photo albums onto their weblog or personal website.

We have fairly mixed feelings about Jet Photo Studio. It lets you manipulate photos in all sorts of ways, creating Flash movies, posting to Flickr or your website, and locate photos with your GPS. However sending images via mobile is not really up to scratch and Flash movies can not be customized. We were also disappointed that JetPhoto Studio doesn’t automatically import images already on your PC. A promising image viewer, but it’s not guaranteed that JetPhoto Studio will appeal to everyone.

Download JetPhoto Studio 3.12.3 in Softonic

Now that most people own a digital camera, there’s no reason to maintain traditional photo albums anymore. Online galleries are in fashion and Arles Image Web Page Creator is certainly a good option for you to take your first steps into the HTML photo album world.

The first impression you get after launching the program is that you’re right in front of a standard image viewer, with the usual interface design: directory tree-like structure on the left, picture thumbnails on the right. In fact, Arles can also be used as image viewer, even with full screen capabilities, which are pretty handy.

However, this is not its main function. Arles is primarily designed to help you build HTML galleries with your pictures, but we must say it won’t make things easy for you, at least at the beginning. The customizing options are a bit hidden and you may end up with the feeling that you don’t even know where to begin. However, after a reasonable learning curve, you start taking advantage of all the possibilities featured in Arles.

You can basically personalize every little detail of your gallery, ranging from the size in which thumbnails should be displayed to the titles showed for both pictures and album pages. This high level of customization is something that users with some knowledge of HTML will appreciate, but the good thing is that you may just leave everything as it is, a possibility that novice users will be grateful for.

Arles also features the image effects function, a great tool that has been recently implemented. It allows you to add a series of special effects to your pictures, such as text or image overlays, borders, shadows, etc. These effects can be combined with each other and saved as presets to use them again some other time. The results are really attractive.

So, if you want to show -and share- your best digital pictures, Arles Image Web Page Creator is definitely the answer to your prayers. Give it a chance: create your own HTML image gallery and you will never go back to printed photos again.

Download Arles Image Web Page Creator 7.4.3 in Softonic

Organising photos is an increasingly difficult task with so many digital media from phones, to cameras to video camera now able to take your favourite snaps.

I've tried every program going and whilst this is not the the best looking, it's certainly simple enough for anyone to use from parents to children and brings some semblance of organisation to your photo collection. The program works very simply - just select the pictures you want, select a template and watch Album Express assemble your creations in no time. You have some pretty basic navigation tools to look through your photos. However, it's not just aimed at novices because it also allows scripting plugins for those who know how to although the instructions about how to do this are frustratingly hard to find. If you can however, it allows you to build your own templates and display styles. One extra added little touch is that you can link photos to MIDI and WAV files for an extra touch of class.

It's all here for anyone who wants a simple but functional photo viewer although it's not really a touch on Picassa.

Download Album Express 4.0 in Softonic

Creating computer slide shows is very easy with MySlideShow. This simple and straightforward software application offers its users a comprehensive toolkit for making bright, memorable and esthetically pleasing slide shows and photo albums.

The program is quite elementary - select images, indicate the desired sequence (or choose random order), apply special transition effects, and you get a professionally looking slide show with one button click. Conveniently, photo albums, thumbnail web galleries, screensavers and video CDs can be created with the same program!

Features:

• Has a convenient user interface (similar to Windows Explorer) for adding image files to your slide show from your image folders.
• Shows selected images and slides in preview and full screen modes.
• Shows slides as thumbnails, which makes it easier to change their sequence or sort them.
• Allows you to customize various slide show parameters.
• Allows you to add and edit the slide Captions.
• Allows you to rotate your images to the position you want without an image editor.
• Allows you to change the settings either for the whole slide show or for individual slides.
• Allows you to synchronize slides with music.
• Allows you to allocate slides in your own transition points on the timeline of the background playlist using the Timeline Editor (only in Gold version).
• Allows you to place text, small images, web links, video clips and Flash animations on slides using the Slide Editor (only in Gold version).
• Offers Manual and Automatic slide show modes.
• Offers special Start Screen option allowing you to view your photos as Previews or Filmstrip.
• Saves slide show projects in special text format that allows you to play and edit them later on.
• Has font and color settings for the slide captions.
• Has font and color settings for the image information text.
• Plays background music during whole slide show from a special play list. Each track in the playlist can be customized with the Start Time, End Time, Fade In and Fade Out options.
• Supports Transition Effects.
• Supports Motion (Pan & Zoom) Effects for output video files (only in Gold version).
• Allows you to collect several executable slide shows into an Album.
• Creates output slide shows as standalone executable (.exe) files or screen savers.
• Creates output slide shows as video files and burns video CDs and DVDs.
• Generates HTML pages with thumbnails (web galleries) for publishing on the web.

Download MySlideShow 2.7.8 in Softonic

The creators of this tool claim that it is the primary choice of “thousands of professional photographers and serious amateur photographers worldwide” for image management and after checking out what is on offer, it seems there may be some credibility to that claim. The latest incarnation comes with no less than 38 bug fixes and a handful of new features. So what makes it the choice of so many high-end users?

iMatch is a database-driven image manager. The first thing you do when using the program is define your database, which will store all of your images, together with detailed information about their name, dimensions, file size, and the date on which they were taken. This is an essential part of the process and can take some time if you have a large collection of photos to begin with. Luckily there is a wizard to guide you through the process, which would ideally lead to a smooth set-up but on our first attempt the program crashed as it was trying to create the database. Not exactly great for all those pros.

By creating a new database, iMatch also makes thumbnails for each image, andthese are used for browsing your collection. There are plenty of obscurely-named buttons on the main interface that are slightly too small to represent anything in particular. Among them you will actually find some great tools, such as the scripting manager, which will make life easier for some of the more arduous tasks you may have in mind, such as cropping all your images or creating a HTML slideshow. There are also some editing tools that will save you having to switch to another program to transform, resize, rotate, or apply visual effects to images. The quality of these tools is debatable and because of the lack of a real-time preview, and most pros will probably want to stick with their tried-and-tested copy of Photoshop for any touch up work.

We liked the ideas behind iMatch; it is a powerhouse for managing large quantities of images and offers some truly useful features that would not only appeal to the pro user, but photo-editing rookies as well. However, the interface is in bad need of a fresh look and we can’t help but feel that there are several alternatives out there that carry out the same role better. (See ACDSee Photo Manager or XnView)

Download iMatch 3.6.0.51 in Softonic

Quickie Web Albums moves your digital pictures to web photo albums, so that friends, family, or clients can view your pictures on the web). Quickie is simple to use, but full of the options to let you customize your albums.

Features of Quickie Web Albums:

• Include JPEG, GIF, PNG and more picture types
• include QuickTime or AVI movies embedded in your web photo albums
• Create just thumbnails for all the images
• Album tab that allows you to make horizontal or vertical templates
• Common header or footer text area (allowing for text above or below the photo table) for each page
• Specify HTML page properties such as background image, colors for text and link, and meta tags
• Many JavaScript options such as open in new window, protect image, and open in a new HTML window
• Watermark images
• Allow visitors to leave comments about albums (requires PHP)
• Beta FTP upload options (with mini FTPclient)

Download Quickie Web Albums 4.3.5 in Softonic

Now that you're back from summer holidays, it's time to share all the pictures you took with your friends and family. But before punishing them with an endless slideshow after lunch, why don't you create a web album?

You don't need any HTML or programming knowledge: Glenlay Gallery does the job for you. Simply select the pictures you want to add, choose a template and upload everything to your FTP space with the program's built-in client. The only drawback is that the program only allows selecting entire folders.

Glenlay Gallery is perfect for novice users thanks to its ease of use. It enables you to have a ready-to-visit web album in just a few minutes.However, I found the included templates a bit dull and I also missed having some more customization options.

Download Glenlay Gallery 2.1 in Softonic

Porta turns an image directory into a neatly formatted web photo album. Besides being free its primary virtues are being also fast, simple to use and lightweight. Porta produces clean and uncluttered web pages that will load fast and look good in all modern browsers.

Making a photo album requires you to locate an image directory. Next, the window to the right is shown. Pressing enter starts album generation and shortly after is the result shown in your browser. Simple and fast!

Features and program options include:

• Support for skins
• Multi-language album support
• Major image captions below each image and minor captions as hovering tooltips
• Inclusion of high-resolution images
• Automatic image rotation from EXIF orientation
• Watermarks showing e.g. the IPTC author and copyright
• Auto-start of albums placed in the root folder of CDs or USB-sticks

Download Porta 0.99 in Softonic

There are many ways to create photo albums, but Flash is probably the one that produces the most visually appealing results. If not, check out Fortop Album Creator and see what it can do for you.

This simple application enables you to generate stunning Flash photo albums in a quick, easy way. The program includes a wide selection of templates ready to be used and supports background music as well. All you need to do is select a template, choose the photos and music for your album and let Fortop do the job.

The albums can be generated as HTML documents or SWF files, which include images, sound, transition effects, EXIF data and even a slideshow. Luckily enough the program is quite easy to use: otherwise you'd find yourself in trouble, because the Help section needs serious improvement.

Download Fortop Album Creator 1.1 build 70901 in Softonic