ctPhotoBook
The digital open source, free, photo album software you dreamed of.

ctPhotoBook is a heavy duty, open source, digital photo album software with unique features.
Version 1.6

• ctPhotoBook is in the process of becoming an OPEN SOURCE (definition) project.
• As we still need to clear some license issues, the source code is not yet available.
• Windows binaries (executables) available for download.
• Recent changes
• Added CHANNEL MIXER and CURVES functions, to better enhance and or convert to greyscales (available through the [CM] button in the ImageView window.
• CompoHelp feature, facilitating use of the 'rule of thirds' when cropping pictures.
• Rapid browsing and lossless rotating of photos (using cursor keys left and right to rotate, up and down to scroll)
• Thumbs printing is now working
• Features
• An album can contain ANY number of pages, each with different size and/or orientation.
• A page can contain a huge quantity of photos (without degrading performance).
• The ORIGINAL photo is always conserved and copied unaltered to the archiving subdirectories, this gives you in fact a full featured archiving system with included layouting facilities.
• Each photo can be resized and repositioned anywhere on a page through easy to use drag and resize handles.
• The ratio cropping feature has been improved with more preset aspect ratios (1/1,4/3,5/4 etc...) (NEW in 1.5)
• The storage engine has been completely rewritten and optimized. (Pages are mapped to directories, which contain a) the original photos, b) the resampled thumbs and c) the plain text file descriptions with the layout information.)(NEW in 1.5)
• Your JPEG Photos can now be rotated LOSSLESSLY through selecting them with the mouse while holding CTRL or ALT key depressed. It's a one click operation for fastest workflow.(NEW in 1.5)
• Existing pages can easily be saved as layout templates to improve your workflow. (NEW in 1.5)
• You can print single photos any size, they can even span more than one page (Poster Printing) (NEW in 1.5)
• Quickly print contact sheets from any directory containing photos (NEW in 1.5)
• While adding/viewing photos, you are shown the EXIF Data and the brightness histogram (This gives you valuable information about the exposure for quick selection of the best photo.) (NEW in 1.5)
• The HTML Export Generator Wizard now uses templates, which leaves you total freedom of customization.(NEW in 1.5)
• The memory management has been optimized for faster display of even larger photos(NEW in 1.5)
• You can add multiline text captions anywhere on a page
• A QUICKSTART button allows you to start adding pictures to your first album 10 seconds after the installation.
• Full screen visualisation of album in slide show mode.
• You have full control over the Z-Order (for photos whihch partly overlapp) on page.
• The workflow has been designed to allow you rapidly archive and layout large quantities of hires photos.
• To obtain real long time preservation (=archiving), only widely documented file formats are used.
• Original photos are preserved in the album's directory tree and never altered, so they can easily be reused later.
• No more bothering with filenames. Files are renamed dynamically on import.
• While you add photos to a page, you can rapidly browse through directorys, easily crop and rotate.
• You can apply filters, change brightness/contrast and/or various effects to your photos (or part of them)
• Photos can easily be moved and/or duplicated to other pages
• A snap-to-objects function allows for precise positioning on page.
• Pages can have a bookmark, which allows for fast navigation in huge albums.
• Page flipping is ultra fast, even on less powerfull machines, due to a UNIQUE way of storing original image and its resampled representation.
• When you print the pages with your layouted photos, the printing process is using the ORIGINAL file, to guarantee printouts in best available quality.
• When you Zoom into an image to see details, again the ORIGINAL file is used to show you all available detail.
• All major file formats are supported.
• Due to the UNIQUE storage system, Albums can easily be burned on CD, CONSERVING on the CD:

• The orginal photos (in the original file format), for a) REAL, longtime available archiving purposes, b) reuse with other programs, c) best quality impressions, d) reuse in ctPhotoBook, e) whatever else can be done with a photo.
• Layouted (on pages containing one or more photos) and resampled representations for real fast on-screen viewing and page flipping.
• The freely distributable ctPhotoBookViewer application. (soon available)
• A textfile containing description of storage method and subdirectory organization.