Canon PowerShot SD970 IS

Playback Mode

There are five different playback information displays, toggled by pressing the DISP key.

Browsing your photos gets a little entertainment value bump with the availability of transition effects between images. You can go forward and back by pressing the sides of the four-way controller, or turn the control dial to zoom through the photos. While there isn’t a separate calendar view display, you can still browse images by date taken; pressing up or down on the controller while browsing with the control dial jumps from date to date.

Whichever view you choose, holding the camera vertically will pivot the picture, but strangely not the text overlay. This is handy if you want to quickly see a vertical shot in full-screen view, but otherwise not terribly helpful.

Then we get to the more esoteric browsing features Canon found time to develop. Active Display lets you give the camera a gentle sideways shake and move to the next or previous image (depending on the shake direction), with a sound effect and a falling-into-place transition. This one strikes us as pure gimmick: it’s slower than turning the control dial and feels finicky and unnatural. Another unusual browsing feature is slightly more useful. Hold down the left or right side of the four-way controller and tipping the camera in the same direction makes the camera virtually flip through images at a rapid clip. It’s not a bad way to quickly zoom through groups of photos as you keep your eyes peeled on the screen.

The other useful playback-mode feature is the option to categorize photos with the following labels: People, Scenery, Events, Category 1, Category 2, Category 3 and To Do. These categories can then be used to selectively browse your photos in the camera, select the images to be included in a slideshow, create a DPOF file and protect or delete by group. The category labels also appear when you use the supplied ZoomBrowser EX (Windows) and ImageBrowser (Mac) software.

The slideshow capability here isn’t bad, particularly if you’re hooked up to an HDTV. You can filter the photos to be shown by category or date, determine the individual image play time, choose a between-image transition effect and decide whether the show automatically repeats or not. No audio accompaniment, though.

When viewing movies, you have adjustable slow-motion playback at your disposal along with frame-by-frame advance forward or backward, and the ability to jump instantly to the beginning or end of the video.

Detailed Information	Index View

In-Camera Editing (6.50)

Built-in photo tweaking capabilities include the basics: image rotation, red-eye correction, and the option to resize to one of the smaller image sizes supported by the camera. The trimming feature offers presets for the different image size options, with the ability to rotate the frame and move it around. If face detection was used when shooting the photo, the frame will appear on screen as a trimming option.

Dynamic range adjustment is available during image editing as well as during shooting. As an editing effect there are four settings, Auto, Low, Medium and High.

Most of the color adjustments offered during shooting can also be applied as filters during playback, including Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black and White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green and Vivid Red. Unfortunately, the cool color accent and color swap functions are only available while taking photos, not after the fact.

The beginning and/or end of a recorded video can be trimmed in-camera with one-second precision, and a copy of the edited version saved, without overwriting the original (unless you want to).

Direct Print Options (5.00)

The DPOF (Direct Print Order Form) utility is well designed and nicely detailed, including the option to select photos one by one or by groups, turn date and file number printing on or off, and output index prints. You can use the same DPOF settings for output to an attached PictBridge-compatible printer, but since Canon is a major photo printer maker, it comes as no surprise that the SD970 IS has a mind-bogglingly full-featured system for using up ink and paper. If you’re into total control, you can choose paper size, crop a photo in the camera, enhance the photo with vivid colors and/or noise reduction, imprint the date, file name or both, choose printer output quality setting, determine page layout (bordered or borderless, multiple images per sheet or index prints). Whew! Or, if you prefer, the dedicated Direct Print button on the camera back will print a copy of the photo displayed on screen with one press.