Snapfire allows users to upload, share, edit and organise images for free. Snapfire Plus offers more features and sells for $40.Corel was founded in 1985 and battled Microsoft after an acquisition of WordPerfect in 1996. Corel's software failed to make inroads in the market and the company was forced to lay-off a significant percentage of its workforce and later came under scrutiny from the Ontario Securities Commission. Corel now owns rights to Paint Shop Pro and the popular WinZip archiving software.
Snapfire will compete with Google's Picasa. Picasa is free software which allows users to organise and quickly tour through images stored on their computers. In May 2006 the search engine released a Linux version of Picasa and Picasa Web Albums in June. Picasa Web Albums allows Picasa users to select and upload pictures to the web where they can be shared.
Snapfire encourages users to arrange photographs into slideshows known as "Snapfire Shows" which can include additional visual effects and music.
"With Snapfire Shows, users of all levels can indulge their creative sides and create visually arresting, highly customized slideshows that truly bring their digital photo and video collections to life. No other free photo software combines these impressive capabilities and special effects with superior ease-of-use and simplicity," said Blaine Mathieu, General Manager of Corel's Digital Imaging business.
Snapfire will face fierce competition from Flickr the social image organiser bought by Yahoo. Flickr has a significant market share and is integrated with del.icio.us - Yahoo's social tagging site. Flickr allows users to easily post their stored images to blog communities such as SixApart's LiveJournal.
The growth in online photograph storing, sharing and searching is in part boosted by the falling costs of digital cameras and the growth of broadband access. Brands such as Kodak are also represented in the marketplace with products like EasyShare Gallery.
"Not only do home users and professionals want their digital photos and videos to be more readily accessible, they are also looking for more fun, easy ways to share them with friends and family from their home PC," Mathieu commented.
Snapfire, like Picasa, requires a software download. Corel's recommended system requirements for the image organiser are a processor running at 1.0 Ghz or faster, 512MB RAM, Windows XP and a 1024 x 768. This compares to Picasa's 300MHz processor, 128MB RA and Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Snapfire is not currently available for Linux users.
