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May 01, 2024

MyMemories Suite 5 Review

It is, unfortunately, beyond the means of most people to follow in the footsteps of ancient rulers and build enormous stone edifices in a bid at immortality. However, most of us have lots of digital

It is, unfortunately, beyond the means of most people to follow in the footsteps of ancient rulers and build enormous stone edifices in a bid at immortality. However, most of us have lots of digital photos just waiting to be turned into handsome photobooks, which is almost as good. If you're thinking of taking up scrapbooking, MyMemories Suite 5 ($39.97) is the tool for the job. Look upon my photobooks and despair: MyMemories finds the right balance between automation and advanced layout tools to make it an Editors' Choice for digital scrapbooking software.

In addition to Windows 7 and Windows 8 , MyMemories also offers Mac support. I used a Windows 7 laptop for this review. The company offers its software at a discounted upgrade price of $19.97 if you've already installed an older version of MyMemories. The MyMemories website also houses a clutch of downloadable content, which ranges in price from free to $20. I like a lot of what's available for download, but as with Panstoria Artisan 4, the process of purchasing, downloading, and installing new content is irritating.

Building Your Scrapbook With MyMemories, you start by picking either template or design mode. If you chose to work from a template, you have a very Foto.com-like experience: you choose a theme and a layout, and MyMemories fills in the pages. It won't automatically place the images, or keep track of how much your finished book will cost to print, however. The design mode is closer to the experience of Artisan 4: You create new pages in your book and manually fill in the background, pictures, and embellishments as you go.

This is fantastic, because MyMemories can offer both experiences. Sometimes, you'll want to just crank out a fancy page as a last-minute decoration, and other times you'll want to create a highly customized photobook. MyMemories does it all.

The interface of MyMemories is pleasantly colorful and modern looking. I was initially overwhelmed by the sheer number of options, but got a grip on things when I realized that the left rail is a media browser, and the right rail a tool palette. My only complaint is that the photo browser is a bit clunky. I'd love to see MyMemories adopt the approach of Artisan 4, which can show you only pictures you've yet to place in your photobook.

The center of the screen is where you lay out each page (or spread) of your photobook using MyMemories' simple WYSIWYG tools. You can drag photos into frames or place them manually. I really like that you can click on any image to launch an entire window just for placing the image within its frame. This is such a critical part of laying out a scrapbook, and MyMemories gives it the attention it deserves.

You can easily free-rotate and resize images, though it is possible to deform them, so be careful! You can also place images within word art or shapes, like puzzle pieces, for neat cut-out effects. This looks great and only takes a few clicks. This entire layout experience is where MyMemories' balance of professional tools and simple interface really shines.

I especially like MyMemories' strong text effects, which let you adjust color, opacity, and even the shape of the text. You can also add calendars, boxes in which to free-paint with the mouse, silhouettes, clipart, and backgrounds. A minor point of frustration: the left-hand media browser struggled to find my newly added content that were easy to find from the left rail.

Photo EditingPhoto editing in MyMemories is light but simple and straightforward. Most of the options are more akin to adjustable effects, like blur, sharpen, darken, gamma correction, along with more exotic effects like Fish Eye. As with Foto.com Editor, MyMemories' red-eye removal had little effect on my test image. That's better than how Artisan 4 bruised my picture, however.

To be honest, no scrapbook app has blown me away with its photo editing tools. Artisan 4 and CraftArtist 2 have the most robust photo editing options, but my advice is to use your preferred dedicated photo editor. Adobe Photoshop Elements comes to mind.

Printing and Exporting When you're done, you can export your creation as a JPG, PDF, SNG, or SVG file. If you want to just export a few pages, you can also do that, too. Unlike PhotoMix, MyMemories is connected to a robust printing service that can turn your digital scrapbook into a physical book. The fact that MyMemories gives you the choice of exporting however you like, or using their print service, is a big point in its favor.

While you can share a link on Facebook, it's a far cry from Foto.com's Web-based collaboration tools that allow anyone with the link and password to make changes to your creation. Note that MyMemories also has no connection to social media, either for importing photos or exporting a finished product.

Start Scrapbooking MyMemories Suite 5 is my Editors' Choice for digital scrapbooking software. It's a well-polished application that works as a digital scrapbook maker and a general desktop publisher. It balances a curated selection of powerful tools with a very easy to use interface, and tops it all off with an integrated printing service. Use it for all your home-spun publishing needs.

MyMemories Suite 5 combines automation and customization tools that make it fun and easy to turn your digital photos into handsome digital scrapbooks.

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