Photofocus

I’ve tried literally dozens of photo apps for the iPad intended to help me manage my photos. I use the iPad primarily as a photo portfolio. I’ve mostly relied on the supplied photo app that comes with the iPad from Apple. But to say that app is lacking is an understatement. You’d think it’s very easy to come up with a simple portfolio app that is fast, powerful, convenient, easy to use and intuitive. Apparently that is not the case. All the apps I’ve tried work on some level but almost none of them are convenient or easy. I’d just about given up but someone suggested I try Photo Manager Pro by Linkus. Wow what a find.

I finally have photo portfolio manager on my iPad that does the tablet justice. The latest version (3.2.4) is compatible with iOS5. It allows for multiple folders, screen shots, multiple sized images, and backup.

This $2.99 app lets you use FTP, HTTP, USB, Peer to Peer or just about any other method you can think of to transfer photos to and from your computer. I set up my iPad to show my portfolios. You can have several. In my test I set up one for my photos from Bosque del Apache and another I set up features car racing pics.

Open up the Photo Manager Pro server and you get a special URL to type into your browser. Assuming both your computer and iPad are using the same WIFI network, everything just talks to everything and whatever you do on one device is mirrored on the other. Now THAT is easy.

On my computer I made two folders – Bosque and Car. I then populated these folders with dozens of images. As I worked on this process, the folders and images magically showed up on my iPad. Cool!

If that’s all this program did it would be worth the $2.99. But once the images are on the iPad – you can sort and organize them, display them alone or in slide shows that include transitions and music, or just compare them. You can use password protection, you can share images. You can search on just about any criteria and backup and restore images from/to any device.

The program is fast and stable and best of all, the images look great.

I am sure that these sorts of apps are like pizza. Everyone has their own idea of how it should be made. But for me, this is the best of the bunch. I use this app regularly now and highly recommend it to any photographer who is trying to build a portfolio of images on the iPad.

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