Give Your Pictures New Life with Posterino

People love photos. We love taking them, editing them, and most of all we love sharing them with our friends and family. From Facebook albums and email attachments to online services like Kodak galleries and Shutterfly, the options seem limitless for how we get our pictures into the hands of our loved ones. But it’s easy to get tired of sending email attachments or signing up for new sharing services.

Posterino from Zykloid software makes the act of photo sharing fun, engaging, and creative again with its easy-to-use interface and plethora of creative options. Read on past the break to find out more and give your old photos new life.

Welcome to Your Pictures, Again

Admittedly, even after reading the product description on the developer’s website, I was still a little unsure what I was going to use Posterino for or how easy it would be to get up and running.

But like any great Mac app, Posterino features a welcome screen with quick links to an awesome screencast that will help you visualize your project and get a great grasp on using Posterino.

There’s a Template For That

Posterino opens with a template chooser that is oh-so-reminiscent of the ones found in Apple’s own iWork suite, split into categories and displayed as large, clear thumbnails.

In fact, using Posterino almost felt like using a long-lost cousin of Pages or iWeb. Anyone who’s spent time using iWork, or even Microsoft Office for Mac, will feel at home in Posterino.

More Time to Play

Posterino makes adding your photos simpler than any program I’ve used on the Mac. The sidebar in Posterino gives you quick access to your photo libraries, whether you’re using iPhoto or Aperture. With no setup, I was able to start browsing my iPhoto events and finding the photos I wanted for my project.

You can also drag any folder from the Finder into Posterino’s browser, and Posterino will keep track of what’s inside so you can access whatever photos you want, wherever they live on your Mac. Spend less time browsing, and more time creating.

Shuffle Things Up

Posterino is rich and robust enough to satisfy power users looking to spend hours perfecting a project. Double-clicking a picture frame on the canvas lets you change the size, shape, and position of the drop zone, giving you infinite possibilities.

However, my impatience tends to trump my creativity, so I was instantly drawn to the Fill At Random button on Posterino’s toolbar. One click and I was fully convinced this was a great app.

Posterino not only filled my project in with photos from my selected iPhoto event, but it seemed to magically know which pictures would fit which drop zones in the canvas. It even seemed to know where the subjects in my photos were, and I found myself only needing to adjust one photo to get a person into better view.

Fix Your Pictures in Four Clicks.

For the pictures that did need fixing up, all Posterino needed was a double-click. Double-clicking an image on your canvas brings up resize handles that any user of Microsoft Office or iWork will recognize. You can quickly change the shape of the image tile and reposition it on your page to your liking.

Even better, if your picture isn’t quite framed or positioned right within the frame, another double-click will give you the ability to resize or reposition the image itself, not unlike adjusting an image mask in Pages or iWeb.

Overall, for being so rich and robust, Posterino will let you accomplish quite a bit in very few steps.

Share Your Creations

Sharing in Posterino is remarkable. All it takes is a quick click on the Export button, and Posterino presents your options:

With the option to do anything from upload to a Flickr stream, export to iPhoto, or even create a desktop wallpaper for your Mac, you can truly take your creation just about anywhere. Of course, you can also take the easy route and simply attach your creation to an email, should the mood strike you.

Overall Impressions

All in all, Posterino was a wonderful surprise. Admittedly, the concept seemed at first narrow, and I couldn’t help wondering what I would really use this app for. But after creating a few posters, postcards, and one beautiful wallpaper for my Mac, I’m convinced. Posterino is a great app for giving your old pictures new life. A few notable highlights were:

• Custom canvas sizes – Don’t just create email attachments! You can specify how large your finished product will be (in pixels or inches,) and export your project as a high-res image, perfect for sending to a print service. For weddings, graduations, or even framed works for the hall, Posterino is a surprisingly powerful publishing platform.
• Wide export options – Creating great projects is one thing, but being able to get them out into the world is often a very different thing. Posterino helps you create stunning projects and gives you the means to get your work into the hands of the people you love.

Posterino is For You

Whether you’re a novice user just looking to make a quick photo project, or a true Mac hobbyist looking to go further than iPhoto projects, Posterino will take your pictures to new places. This app earned a place on my dock, and I can’t wait to start my next Posterino project.

Download the free trial from the Zykloid website and see if Posterino is as much fun for you as it has been for me!