Not one favourite, but two.

I had just looked over the beta release of CameraBag when I saw -- again via a Tweet -- that Zykloid software was reporting an update to its rather good application, Posterino. This is now at version 2.5.

I have been using Posterino for more than 4 years now because I like the way it is so easy to create a poster using one of the templates, or by creating a poster from new. Adding captions and effects are simplified and the effort required is considerably less than would be required for a major photography editing program. If you want to do a job effectively, get the right tool.

As well as a number of minor fixes in the update to Version 2.5, Zykloid have added a new feature, the calendar, to go with Posters, E-cards and Photo Frames. There are 12 calendar templates. Some are fairly traditional styles: pictures plus the dates at the bottom, or to one side. Three use a large photograph with the dates displayed on top of the image. Two of these -- Blackstone and Windward -- change any selected photograph to monochrome. The other large-image calendar uses the color photograph chosen.

In some cases, the colors for calendar data may need changing as the default colours may not work in all cases. This is easy to effect by using the Inspector where changes that are needed to the image setup may be made.

When a template is chosen the pictures on the user's disk are made available in a side panel. In my case, this includes the two Aperture libraries I have, plus iPhoto, as well as any images on the desktop. For the larger posters or calendars, I drag the picture I want onto the template. If I use a template with multiple images, I can either drag these one by one or click on the "Fill at Random" icon on the toolbar.

When a template is first chosen, there are default settings, such as landscape paper size (e.g. A4) and resolution (200dpi default). These may be changed as part of the initial setup process, landscape to portrait for example.

When the picture (portrait, card, calendar) is finished, we may export by saving to disk, sending by email, sending to iPhoto, uploading to Flickr, or by using as a desktop image. If we choose the Desktop option, we are given options to scale the image. Before finishing the image is displayed to give an idea of how it will appear and the Desktop Image selection panel has a Revert Desktop button if the user is not happy with the result. As with many images, when used in a larger context, they may not appear as good as they did when thumbnails.

Posterino is a useful application with well-defined range of tasks; what it does within these limits, it does very well. It is available via the Mac App Store as well as the Zykloid website.

This article was first available on the AMITIAE site on 7 December 2011