Olympus E-300 SLR Review

OLYMPUS Master™ software is designed to enhance the organization, editing, and sharing of your pictures, OLYMPUS Master combines an easy-to-use interface with the latest digital imaging tools and functionality. And upgrading to OLYMPUS Master Plus™ gives you even more advanced movie (QuickTime®) and still-image editing features: Record onto CD/DVD media; Create Video CDs, Slideshows, Wallpaper, and Screensavers; Print with backgrounds or other illustrations; and more.

Both versions are compatible with Windows®98SE/Me/2000Professional/XP and Mac® OS X 10.2 (or higher), and support Olympus USB-equipped cameras, including Auto-Connect USB for instant viewing and management of your images.

Olympus Updates Studio Software for E-300

When you first run the Olympus Master software you will be presented with this menu of main features which include:

• Upgrade to the Master Plus version of the software by purchasing a license for $19.99.

• Transfer Images from your camera or other media into your computer

• Backup Images You can make a backup copy of the files registered in OLYMPUS Master in a specific folder or storage media such as a CD-R, DVD-R, etc. You can back up all of the files viewable in OLYMPUS Master.

• Browse - display the files transferred from the camera or media to OLYMPUS Master in calendar style, allowing you to easily locate the desired files. You can also display the files in the conventional folder tree view.

• Online Print - send your images to Ofoto (or others) for professional printing

• Print Images at Home with your own photo printer. Options for printing a Photo, Postcard, Contact Sheet, Album, Calendar or Index.

• Create and Share has options for Email, Share Photos Online, Auto Panorama, Slide Show, Wallpaper and Camera Album.

Here's the browser window in the default Calendar View mode. On the left is the calendar selection pane, then the thumbnaial image pane, histogram pane, information pane with a General tab (shown) and an Exif tab option and on the far right is the Web Services pane.

The browser window in Folder View mode.

The Image Edit function allows you to "adjust" and correct JPEG images. You can rotate portrait mode images, crop images, let the software perform its magic with the "Instant Fix" option which will automatically brighten/color correct and etc., remove red-eye or manually adjust the color balance.

For those wishing to control the complete "development" process, OLYMPUS Master software offers the ability to process the E-300's RAW format image data downloaded from the cameras - either through single-image or batch image processing.

The raw .ORF images contain all of the image data collected at the time of the exposure and can be manipulated with controls for the exposure value, white balance, contrast, sharpness and saturation. After you get the image adjusted to your satisfaction it can then be saved as a standard JPEG image with three quality levels or Exif-JPEG to maintain the original exposure data. If you want to import the data into a photo editor like Photoshop for further manipulation then you can save it as an uncompressed BMP or TIF (or Exif-TIFF) image.

Using the Print at Home menu option and selecting the Calendar Print option, you can easily make your own professional quality photo calendars!   This is just one of the printing options available, with the others you can make a photo print, picture postcards, contact sheets and albums.