Price:	$24.95		Reviewed by:	Shaun McGill
Supplied:	Resco		Review date:	17/05/2005
Pros:	Very clean and professional interface Fantastic photo/image reproduction Many extra tools included		Cons:	I tried really hard but could find none

Introduction Since moving over to the Windows Mobile platform a few months back I have experimented with games, video, WiFi, news readers, various note taking applications and almost any other genre of program available. For some reason I had almost forgotten about photo viewing on a PDA as the applications I found were not as good as anything on the Palm platform- enter Resco Photo Viewer which changed all of that. Resco Photo Viewer (Windows Mobile Edition) I'm not really sure where to start with this application as there are so many features included but I will begin with what originally drew me to it and that's the way it is presented and the interface used to navigate photos and the various options within the Photo Viewer. If you own a digital camera and a PDA I would say that Resco Photo Viewer is the ideal bridge between the two. The advantage of taking digital photos is the ability to view them immediately on your PC and print them out in very high quality for framing etc. Think about it though- if you own a PDA and want to keep your memories with you why not just carry them around in your pocket? I won't talk too much about the quality of photo reproduction with RPV because I have added two screenshots at the bottom of the review which show it off in it's full VGA glory. One of the photos was taken with my Loox 720 and if this application can make a photo taken with that camera look good it must be doing something right:) OK- the best way to do this is to look at each of the features in turn and I'm not guaranteeing that I will cover them all here as there are so many hidden in the menu options. Slide Show- there are a few offerings out there for keeping your PDA busy whilst it is sat in it's cradle on your desk at work or home but the slide show feature within RPV does everything you need within having to shell out for a seperate program. The options available within it include the ability to play a chosen audio file (that can be looped) whilst the slide show is playing, voice notes which you can attach to individual pictures within RPV can be played as the photos appear. There are 19 transition effects including Dissolve, Fade Smoothly and Random Transition and even this feature has a setting for how long you want each photo to display for in seconds. Text notes (which you can add in RPV) can be displayed with each photo, you can automatically display each photo in full screen mode and even the direct of play is customisable with options including Forward, Backward, Randon and Manual. Creating a slide show is easy- all you need to do is choose a folder with the photos you want to view and while in the thumbnail view just choose 'Save Album as...' and away you go. It's advisable to save it onto an expansion card if you are short of space but the option to delete the original photos is there as well. Phew! That's the description of ONE feature of this program and I'm tired already... Views- as you can see in the image above the thumbnail view shows each image in good clarity enabling you to quickly navigate to the photo you want to view. There is also the option to view file names with each thumbnail and a preview view which shows the whole photo in the bottom of the screen with 4 thumbnails at the top, a bit like the Windows Explorer thumbnail view. You can choose large, medium and small icons, tiny icons with photo information such as date, resolution and size, multiple selection boxes for quick deletion or sending via Bluetooth, IrDA or Email. Quick point- you can also send albums via any of the previous 3 methods. The ability to sort the thumbnails by name, size and even time is there as well as a manual sorting option which is an unusual but nice extra touch. You can zoom each photo from 25% to 300% or to fit the screen exactly as well as the standard rotation settings of Portrait, Landscape and Auto Landscape for larger photos. Rotating by degrees is also included. Now I'm really tired! Capture Screen- you can capture a full screen photo at any time using the included 'Capture Screen' function. You have a choice of immediate capture or one with a 10 second delay to ensure you get things just how you want them. Even better the choice if saving format is available- PNG, JPG and BMP. This is unusual because BMP tends to be the default for most capture programs. Editing- If you thought the above was cool this is even better. You can edit and annotate your images on your PDA wherever you are. A selection button is there for cutting parts of a picture and for cropping. Colour management in the form of a simple slider is included as are brightness and contrast controls. Whenyou throw in some semi-special effects such as reddening images or blueing and greening images. You may not know what I am talking about but three buttons allow you to enhance the red, blue and green colours within a photo and this brings some surprisingly effective results. How about adding a Text Note, Voice Note or a drawing to a photo or image? Well, it's all there for you to experiment with and they work very well indeed. Even basic shapes are included in the add drawing function for quicker annotation. Once finished just tap the tick and your image will be saved with your additions in tact. I almost forgot that you can make any picture negative with one tap for even stranger effects, especially on people. If you have HP Mobile Printing v2.0 installed you can also print directly from your PDA. This could be useful for showing clients an annotated plan or drawing while away from the office. The 'Quick Preview' option allows you to navigate very large pictures to enable viewing of a particular area. The image to the right shows this off well. Even VGA Output is in the menu options. You can choose Voyager, Pretec VGA, Presenter-to-Go and FlyJacket with a host of other settings choice included within. If you want to play MPEG 1 format videos feel free- you can loop them, pause. stop etc. just as you would any normal video player. Saving options are extensive. If you want a new wallpaper for your Pocket PC just choose 'Set as Wallpaper' and JPEG, BMP and PNG are the format choices for your saved work. Even image quality can be set for JPEG images which is not even found in some desktop imaging programs. Throw in the capturing of EXIF data and that's a complete feature list. The Interface is what ultimately makes this application work so well. I have not fully covered all of the features available and Resco have done an excellent job squeezing so many functions onto the PDA via an intuitive and beautiful looking interface. The image on the left says a lot- included are the variousviewing options at the bottom, browse folders, information for each photo, deletion, navigation within folders, zoom settings and full screen view. The icon showing an up and down arrow allows the user to remove one menu line from view if full screen is not required. One final point- you can upgrade to the latest version of RPV just by choosing the option while your Pocket PC is docked in it's cradle and the latest version will be automatically installed. The clever implementation of RPV stands out even more when viewing email attachments and other documents on your PDA. It's super quick to load up and feels like part of the core system right from the time you install it. Palm Owners- the above was written from my experiences with the Windows Mobile version of RPV so should Palm owners ignore this? Definately not! These photo formats are included in the Palm version: Jpeg, progressive Jpeg, Gif, animated Gif, bmp, tif/F, SplashPhoto 3.6. Direct support for the following Palm cameras: Sony, Zire, Treo 600, SpecTec, Veo (via VeoTransfer plugin). Special device support for Sony Clie (incl. UX50), Treo 600, Zodiac, Tungsten/T3, Garmin iQue 3600 and compatibility with programs like ZLauncher and Snappermail amongst others. I only had a quick look at the Palm version but could see little difference to the version above. Conclusion Whatever PDA you are using I have to recommend Resco Photo Viewer in the highest possible terms. As you may know we are VERY honest when reviewing software and have received some negative comments from developers in the past who did not like what we wrote but in this instance NOTHING touches Resco Photo Viewer for image viewing and manipulation, NOTHING touches Resco Photo Viewer for programming efficiency and thoughful implementation and NOTHING touches Resco Photo Viewer for value for money. I simply cannot think of a way in which it could be improved. The two screenshots below show off RPV's photo viewing capability in full screen mode. The top image was taken with a Loox 720 and the bottom one with a Cannon IXUS II.