Portraits and Prints from econ technologies costs $30 for the standard edition and $50 for the pro edition.
“With Portraits & Prints you can take any photo and print it any way you want. Select your photos and they are automatically arranged onto templates and displayed on screen the exact same way they are printed. You don’t waste time arranging photos and you don’t waste paper since you see the printout beforehand.
A template is a page layout where the photo size and position are preset. In addition to all the basic photo layouts, you can easily add your photos to holiday, birthday, sports card templates and more. Choose from hundreds of free templates or create your own templates using the Pro version. Create templates for any size paper then layout any size and number of photos you want. You can even add text, graphics, shadows, frames, masks, and more. The possibilities are endless! Portraits & Prints truly does turn your Mac into your personal photo studio.
The Standard Edition gives you access to every feature of Portraits & Prints, including the ability to download unlimited free templates, with one restriction: you can not edit or create custom templates. The Pro Edition has all the great features of the Standard Edition plus the ability to create and edit templates. All the tools you need to create any template you can imagine or edit any of the free templates included with the program or available from the Template Manager”
This isn’t an application that I would normally look at personally for a number of reasons. First, I hardly ever print out any of my pictures. I have never had the need and from my very first digital camera I have always felt that a real benefit was the fact that you could see all your pictures on a hard drive and view via a screen. I did, and still do, feel that printing was an expensive waste of time in most cases, although I can see what some people would want to. Second, I have never really been into what I call the “gimmicks” of creating postcards, calendars etc. I do have an open mind though, and I can certainly understand why some people get hooked on these aspects, so I was keen to see what the application was like.
It was certainly easy to set up and to get to grips with, and I must confess I had a lot of fun adding captions to a number of photographs which really only proved that there is a very small child somewhere deep inside me still.
Again the templates where fun, but I did find the multiple photos on a template really useful for producing a mini collage which in turn made a pretty neat Desktop Background.
Fun, that best sums up this application. Is is neat and effective, easy to use and does a good job. For how long it would remain fun really depends on your personality. I had hours of fun initially, but quickly tired of it. I have come back to it from time to time since and enjoyed messing about with it for a while, but I am afraid my initial view hasn’t changed. This type of application just isn’t really for me BUT that doesn’t mean that you wont enjoy it, and if you have kids I am sure they will have hours of fun with it. It really is worth taking a look at.