Picture Quality / Size Options
The Image Quality settings for the HP Photosmart M527 are located within the main Capture Menu. Once the Image Quality setting has been selected users will be able to select settings which vary from full resolution to television display. The HP M527 has settings for 6 MP Best, Normal 6 MP, 4 MP, 2 MP, VGA, and Help. The Help setting will inform users as to the proper settings and information regarding Image Quality, and how altering these settings will better improve their digital shooting experience.

Picture Effects Mode
The Picture Effects modes for the HP M527 produce results in postproduction image editing that are varied at best. Intended to replace PC editing software programs, the finesse and quality of these settings vary from feature to feature. Also, although placed within the same Design Gallery menu, the features found on the M527 and those found in the R-series are drastically different, with a truncated smattering of options remaining on this lower-priced model.

Users of the M527 can enter these menus by entering the Design Gallery menu and opening one of the following options.

The Artist Effects Menu allows users to use these features: Posterize, Soft Glow, Slimming and Kaleidoscope. Of all four features, Kaledioscope produces the most interesting results, while the Slimming feature places the photographic subject in the center of the frame and then engages in a fun house stretching effect. Hopefully this is intended as a whimsical effect; it’s too crude to be taken seriously. When using these Artist Effects settings, photographers are provided with a thumbnail of their image to better judge the results of effect application.

Another submenu with the Design Gallery allows users to alter the color of the photograph, providing them with these options: Black and White, Sepia, and Black and White Tints. As the options are scrolled through, each effect is applied to a thumbnail of the photograph. These settings are fairly standard on all point-and-shoot digital cameras, even within this price range, and the more advanced settings that existed in the R927 are removed from this model.

Finally, the least successful of the three submenu options is assuredly the Add Borders option, which allows users to choose the shape, though not the color or parameters of a digitally added border. This setting provides users with thumbnails of their photograph, and as users scan the menu, each menu setting appears superimposed upon the image. The settings in this mode ar:e Soft Edge, Inset Border, Oval, Circle, Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle and Square. This mode often inaccurately framed the image, tending to over crop images and producing small centered images with odd border colors. The border colors, automatically chosen by the camera, varied according to the content of the image; though, my self portrait attempts always seemed to garner a pink border, regardless of my background. At least the manipulated images are saved in addition to the original.

Saving images to memory tended to take longer than expected with both this camera and the M425, and it isn’t the most effortless of processes. Although a compelling and interesting step away from time-consuming PC software editing, these features have by no means attained a professional level of control.

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