Minolta DiMAGE A1 Review

The DiMAGE Viewer software is included with the camera and allows you to maintain your image collections with a visual browser interface. It also allows you to adjust, rotate, crop and print your JPEG and RAW (MRW) images from the A1. Shown above is the thumbnail browser interface. To edit an image just double-click it to bring it up the next window.

From the editing interface you have tools for sharpening, adjusting tone curves, brightness, contrast, color balance, hue, saturation, lightness, correction by comparison, rotate, flip vertically or horizontally, resize or imprint image information. Your corrections can be saved and recalled for future use on other images. It also has a side by side comparison window to see the original image and the corrected image. And from this window you can print your images.

If you double-click on a RAW format image it will be displayed in this window first, here you can adjust the raw parameters before the image is loaded into the editing window. This is the real power of shooting in the raw format mode versus the compressed JPEG format.

DiMAGE Capture Software (optional, not included)

DiMAGE Capture is optional software that allows you to control the A1 from your computer when it is tethered with the USB cable.

The above screen shows the DiMAGE Capture interface complete with a realtime preview image. Placing your mouse cursor over the shutter release button on the bottom is the same as half-pressing the camera's shutter release, it causes the camera to auto focus and set the exposure. All current camera settings are shown below the preview image and most parameters can be set using the Basic, Exposure and Color windows. The default Basic options are shown above, the Exposure and Color options are shown in the next two frames.

The Exposure options window.

The Color options window.