Introduction

When I was a kid I had a really bad habit which used to irritate my mom: I use to scribble on our photographs, make some cheeky drawings on them and essentially spoil them completely. I was just doing what we all like to do – add backgrounds and cartoons and images to photos. Of course these days you can manipulate copies of digital photos with programs like PhotoBuilder. With PhotoBuilder you can add a background, put it in a glossy frame and add effects. PhotoBuilder is an excellent image processing tool not only for adding effects to your snaps but also for making invitations.

BraveTech is a Chinese firm well known for developing image processing software and systems. They have launched eight products but PhotoBuilder is their most popular software since its launch way back in 2002. BraveTech’s other classic products include Photo Print, Cute Photo, Brave Viewer and Easy Collector.

Overview

PhotoBuilder is a digital image processing tool which can transform a plain photo into a wonderful image. You don’t need the skill of a professional to edit images in PhotoBuilder.

Image merging is another useful feature of PhotoBuilder. It can smoothly blend two photographs together without leaving a trace.

PhotoBuilder is available in two versions, the Standard and Platinum version. The Standard version has only a few features while the Platinum version includes additional image editing features and pen drawing functions. BraveTech recently upgraded PhotoBuilder Platinum to version 7.3, adding some new filters, more texture images and a magic pen. It's this latest version I'll be looking at in this article.

PhotoBuilder is available for a trial period of 30 days. It costs US$29.95 to purchase a serial key to continue to use it after the end 30 day trial period. PhotoBuilder can be downloaded from BraveTech’s official website. The setup file is 71.7MB.   

Minimum requirements:

• Intel Pentium 200 or higher processor;

• A minimum resolution of 800x600 VGA is required but 1024x768 is recommended;.

• Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 or Windows Vista;

• 200MB free disk space;

• 32MB memory is required, 128MB recommended.

The image formats supported by PhotoBuilder for image editing are BMP, BRT, GIF, JPG, PCX, IMG, MAC, PNG, PSD, TGA, and TIF. PhotoBuilder supports these formats both for input and output of images.

Interface

The graphical interface of PhotoBuilder is an easy to learn. It is divided into seven windows:

• Main Window

• Album Window

• Image Effect Window

• Image Edit Window

• Pen Window

• Transparent Setting Window

• Rotation Window