Olympus Stylus 1030 SW

- Label: Overlay one of ten text messages (Congratulations, Thank You, Happy Birthday, etc.) over a photo you’ve shot. The label text can be white, black or a shade of gray, and resized and repositioned over the image.

- Calendar: Insert a photo you’ve taken with one of eight calendar layouts to create a combined page for printout.

- Index: Available during movie playback, the Index function takes nine frames and turns them into thumbnails combined in an index image that provides an overview of the movie clip.

Also available from the Playback menu are two image enhancement functions under the heading Perfect Fix. Shadow Adjustment brings up the lighting in dark areas and creates a new copy of the image with the enhancement applied. There is no user control over how much or how little the shadows are boosted. Redeye Fix is also available, again as an automated function with no user control.

During shooting, the 1030SW offers three different options for shooting panoramic images:

- Combine in Camera 1: Take your first photo. As you move the camera left or right, a point and a target marker appears on screen. When you line up the pointer with the target marker, the camera automatically takes a second picture. Follow the same procedure for the third shot and the camera combines the three images and saves the result. The three shots aren’t saved individually. And if you want to take just a two-image panorama, pressing Menu after the second shot does the trick.

- Combine in Camera 2: You take three shots manually. After each photo a panel on one side remains visible as a reference for moving the camera and lining up properly for the next shot. When three photos have been taken, the camera stitches them together and saves the result.

- Combine in PC: You have more freedom when shooting images to be combined using the OLYMPUS Master 2 software provided with the camera. You can shoot up to ten images to be combined, and can pan not only horizontally but vertically as well. However, there’s no handy on-screen reference helping you line up the next shot properly, as you have in the previous two modes, so you’re relying on the computer software’s superior processing capability to make up for your less accurate panoramic shooting.