FIGURE H

Next, I decided to brighten up the image. Click picture for a larger image.

Tapping Next again moved me to a screen that shows what's currently on ReadyShare and how much space is available. One more tap of Next uploads the image to the server, ready for me to use in my emails. As you can see in Figure I, I now have two images on the server, and have used 32K of my 250K available.

FIGURE I

I've used up 13% of my space. Click picture for a larger image.

TemplateZone makes more space available for a small fee. You can buy as little as 2MB for $19.95 for a full year or as much as 10MB for $59.95 for a year. We're obviously not talking about huge hosting space, but it's very easy and inexpensive.

One of the new features in High Impact Email 3.0 is the ability to use your own Web space with High Impact Email just as you would ReadyShare. Basically, if you're already paying hosting fees or have your own server (for example, we have about two terabytes of server space here at ZATZ), there's no reason to buy a ReadyShare account or use an outside server. This gives you two choices: the ReadyShare hosted account makes the image management process seamless, and if you're a bit more wired, you can provide your own space without losing High Impact Email's ease of use.

Thoughts on the photo editing features
While we're talking about High Impact Email's ease of use, I should probably give you my thoughts on the image editing tools I just showed you. Before I do, know that I'm a bit of an image editing snob. I'm a photographic artist and, as Editor-in-Chief of Connected Photographer Magazine as well as OutlookPower, I'm very comfortable in photo editing applications.

As you might imagine, I found the few minor photo editing features in High Impact Email somewhat weak. I was a bit disappointed that you only had one level of Undo, so if you cropped and then adjusted contrast, but then decided you didn't like the crop, you had to start over rather than just undoing your way back.

That said, I think TemplateZone's on the right track here, especially for those of you who aren't Photoshop geeks. Because the product offers a few out-of-the-box editing features, if all you want to do is trim a photograph and upload it, you've got it all right there. I was also quite impressed, because High Impact Email also compresses the image so when your recipient gets the email, the compressed image is a quick download. There didn't appear to be any compression artifacts; that feature ran so smoothly that you pretty much have to be a reviewer looking closely at every feature to even know what a nice job it had done behind the scenes.

I am of mixed feelings about the modal nature of the image editing in High Impact Email. First you select the image. Then, you must traverse the photo edit page. Then you upload. Only during the photo edit stage can you edit the image. Once it's been uploaded, there's no chance to make changes. You have to delete the image on the server and then once again run through the wizard, edit along the way and re-upload the image.