Hard to believe that its already been another month. In fact we're a little late in rolling out the May addition, so let's talk photo booth software! Our monthly catalog of whats going on in the photo booth software world. Welcome to the May edition which finds us in the heart of the largest season for photo booth rentals! We've got proms, spring weddings, graduations, birthdays and many other outdoors events. This is a great time of the year for Photo Booth Operators.
Not surprising many photo booth software companies are putting the final tweaks on their latest versions of software. In recent weeks we saw releases from many of the major players in the industry including Breeze Systems, Photo Booth Solutions, Sparkbooth and Allen Christopher.
Its always exciting to see what new has come out and how the game of cat and mouse is playing out. So let's see what these companies have been up too!
Breeze DSLR Remote Pro Beta 2
May saw Breeze release beta 2 of their flagship product DSLR Remote Pro for Windows. The product known for its stability and reliability has not disappointed to date. Many members of the PBO have been running the beta and have had very little issue with it.
beta 2 adds the following:
- Now stores a thumbnail of the layout when exporting layouts and displays a thumbnail browser when importing layouts
- Many refinements to the layout editor including the selection of photos, alignment and adjusting the display order
- Preview thumbnails now displayed only during the photobooth shooting sequence and not on the processing,jpg screen (but this can be enabled as an option)
beta 1 brought the following:
- Print template editor for easy design of photobooth print layouts
- Support for the new Canon EOS Rebel T5/1200D
- The option to add a QR code to photobooth prints
- The option to display small thumbnails in the photobooth screens showing the photos taken so far
- The number of photobooth profiles has been increased from 8 to 18
- New “pop art” creative filter
New photobooth shortcut buttons for easy access to the main photobooth settings.
Update, 3 June 2014: DSLR Remote Pro for Windows beta 3 replaces beta 2 and fixes a problem with running beta 2 in evaluation mode.
Please note that this is a time limited version which will not run after the end of June 2014.
Make sure to check out PBO member and sponsor @Minh's new screens using the latest beta /community/topic/check-out-my-new-breeze-ready-screen
Source: breezesys.com/DSLRRemotePro
Social Booth Releases Version 2
Photo Booth Solutions officially released Social Booth v2 May 28th and wow is it packed with goodies. There is pretty much something for everyone, let's see what they've brought to the market.
Event Management
You can now save the entire settings for an event. This allows owners to populate their booths with multiple events so that operators can load them on site. Admin password functionality allows for settings to be locked out on site.
Multiple Layouts
Social Booth now enables owners to offer multiple layouts for guests to select from. There are 6 hotspots that can be used and the functionality works very similarly to Breeze profiles.
Thumbnails
Thumbnails for individual shots can now be displayed on screen as the session progresses. They can be arranged horizontally or vertically.
Chromecast Slideshows built in
Social Booth now has to ability to transmit a live updating slideshow to any TV with a Google Chromecast device hooked up to it. No other programs are needed, straight from Social Booth to your Chrome browser an on to your TV. No need for a 2nd PC to display a slideshow anymore.
Some nice stuff so far, but there is a lot more including:
- default template layouts (photo arrangements)
- unlimited frames to overlay photos with
- unlimited green screen (chromakey) backgrounds selector
- animated GIF generation with a slick feature to cycle green screen backgrounds
- display of up to 6 filters with quick filter for color & b/w
- improved DSLR camera support including live view exposure simulation
- improved and expanded social media, because it wouldn't be Social Booth without some new goodies in this area
- surveys
- multiple capture and review screens and audio prompts
- DSLR video (requires a t3i or higher)
- improved triggers performance allowing for better credit card swipe , bill collectors and coin mechanisms integration. They can even be used to control external lights and communicate with a large number of external devices.
Wow that is a lot of goodies they packed into v2.
Source: www.photoboothsolutions.com/socialbooth
dslrBooth Pro Released fotoShare
The publisher of dslrBooth released their companion social media sharing app call fotoShare. The app allows guests to share to Email, SMS, Facebook and Twitter directly from an iPad all without any complicated setup.
We wrote about this when they first released fotoShare here.
Here's a nice introductory video they have on their YouTube channel.
Source: dslrbooth.com
As big as May is for photo booth operators there was actually little that happened overall in the month. This shouldn't come as a shock though, you really don't want a new unproven software running your booths in the heart of your busy season. We didn't see anything in May from major players like Darkroom Booth, Photoboof, Sparkbooth or SnapShot Studio. Maybe we'll see something from them in June. My gut tells me that we will.
That's a wrap on May and the photo booth software landscape looking forward to seeing what happens in June!
