Disorganized Photo and Video Collection? Give Expression Media 2 a Try

PC? Mac? With Expression Media 2, It Doesn't Matter

Expression Media 2, the latest development of the former iView MediaPro media organizer, is now available from Microsoft for both MacOS and Windows XP SP2 and vista. A free 30-day trial of the Windows version is available here; the 30-day trial of the MacOS version is available here.

So, What Can I Do with Expression Media 2?

Expression Media 2 can organize, annotate, and convert virtually any popular photo or video file types. Select a file, and the Info tab displays metadata from the digital camera and enables you to add many types of information to your photos, including annotations, information about people, keywords, categories, scenes, and subject codes. Use the Organize menu to find media by label, rating, catalog sets, date range, file type, event, author, people, and keywords.

Editing Power

Expression Media 2 includes an image editor that features edge sharpening, grain reduction, duotone conversion, color level adjustment, and photo negative inversion as well as more routine features. Its optional Media Versions feature enables you to go back to the original version of the image as desired.  It can convert photos to BMP, JPG, PNG, or TIFF with options for changing resolution, size, color depth, compression, watermarking, and preserving or deleting color profiles, metadata, and attaching annotations. Expression Media 2 also supports GPS-driven and manual geotagging.

Script Power

To help you get more done with large media collections faster, Expression Media 2 includes a large number of VBS scripts for adding file annotations, working with files, and performing other tasks. 

To find out how you can use your catalogs on other systems, or learn more about the Expression family, see page 2.

Portable Catalogs

Media catalogs are handy as long as you're at the originating system, but Expression Media's catalog files can also be read on other systems: just download the free Expression Media Reader for Windows or MacOS.  The reader offers interface and file management options similar to the parent application. Both Expression Catalog and the Expression Catalog Reader support emailing of image information via the Expression Media Notepad.

Usage Notes

I used Expression Media 2 on both Vista and Windows XP SP2 platforms, and didn't need to install any additional codecs to view my Canon Digital Rebel XTi RAW (.CR2) files on my Windows XP system (you might need to install additional codecs on some systems, though, depending upon the types of photo and video files you work with).

Expression Family FYI

Expression Media 2 and the companion reader are part of the Expression family of media management and design tools. Version 2 products are expected to hit the market in late May or early June, but you can try Expression Studio 2, which combines all five Expression tools into a single product, or other Expression tools, free from the Try-It page.

The Upgrade page contains information on a wide range of competitive and version upgrade offers for users of certain Adobe, ACDSee, Quark, Corel, Macromedia and other Microsoft products.

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vista, windows xp, metadata, RAW, digital SLR

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