Do-it-yourself family photo album or How to make a cheerful surprise out of a simple picture
A gift beautifies any feast, and what embellishes any gift is a bright and original wrapping. This is why during Christmastime the packing departments of stores are so crowded by people who want to decorate their gifts with colorful paper, ribbons and bows. Indeed, sometimes a colorful envelope, a nice box or a gilt frame can turn a simple gift into a surprise to remember!
I recollect that once my aunt, a great lover of frills and ribbons, was presented a lot of interesting gifts for her birthday. But she was most impressed with a wooden comb beautifully wrapped in shiny paper and a family portrait in a nice carved frame rather than with the fancy perfume and the Beatles songs collection.
This episode suggested me a thought: if a printed photograph in a frame brings about so much joy, why then not to experiment with the decoration of digital images? Once, having noticed that my aunt was heartily looking over her favorite pictures trying to embellish them by means of Photoshop, I suggested her to use Photo Show .
“I know that if you could, you would print a gigabyte of pictures from the family archive and fill the house with shots in pretty frames! This small application will surely help you to make your dream come true and to print as many frames as your heart desires”, I told her and went out in the park with my camera.
When I returned back from the photo shoot late in the evening and started to download the pictures to the computer, I found a new folder called “Portrait Gallery”.
It contained whatever one could imagine: scanned black-and-white photographs of grandma in carved frames, Christmas pictures with Santa Clauses and snowmen in the corners, portraits of aunt and uncle framed with hearts and butterflies. Those romantic things!
Just a couple of hours and my aunt who had never done designing before got a huge virtual gallery of beautifully decorated family photos: frames, ribbons, dedications, and carefully stamped dates. It’s so easy indeed: the simple and understandable interface of Photo Show allows to easily edit images, to resize them, to change their format and contrast balance, to create frames, masks and shadows in one or two clicks. And all of this fits in a tiny application of just 5 Mb!
Do you like gifts? My aunt likes them, too. I’ll make a surprise for her: I will download an additional package of standard frames, masks and inscriptions for PhotoShow, she’s gonna be so happy! 
