If you work a lot with graphic or multimedia files, Jasc Media Center Ver 3.02 (JMC) is a tool that can add a giant boost to handling them with ease. JMC is a software package to organize, edit, manipulate, and use all of your multimedia files which, individually, are probably scattered all over your hard drives.

This software comes with an excellent 127-page User's Guide, in contrast to the trend that many current, hardcopy, software support manuals have given way to CD versions and are becoming extinct. JMC requires a Pentium, Win X, 25 MB of harddrive, and 32MB of RAM. It is from a CD and had no updates from the JASC's Internet site. The site contains a wealth of multimedia support items including tutorials and Jasc Studio Avenue, which is available for publishing your photos so that friends and family can see and download these when visiting the site.

Since this software is purported to handle multimedia, it should cope with the multitude of common formats that exist. From BMP to WPG the software can deal with raster image formats and the various versions of each. JMC also supports 13 types of meta and vector image formats like CDR, WMF, and WPG. It also supports common sound and animation formats. But it does not support the Shockwave, SWG, animation format, which I tried. File inputs can be added via cable interfaces from digital cameras or scanners.

Use of JMC is straightforward. It revolves simply around Albums, Thumbnails, and Media Files, and involves importing selected sets of Media Files into respective albums. The Albums, in turn, display their set of files as Thumbnails, which are sizable 24-bit graphics, rather than the small thumbnails of most graphic editors and Win ME.

What can be done with JMC, aside from collecting and cataloging your multimedia files in convenient comprehendible Albums?

You can sort files in an Album by name, size, date etc. You can print image files, or print some or all of the Thumbnails. Printing all of the Thumbnails in an album gives you a quick easy access to the various graphics available for any project you may have. Also, most card programs or graphic CD's do not come with printed albums, so scrounging around your screen to find a suitable graphic is a mess. With JMC, you can print up your own albums of the software graphics, neatly arranged on succeeding pages. This was easily done for a graphic CD I have. Printouts may be chosen to be in various standard or custom sizes, ranging from thumbnail to full page and is easily done with a mouse click.

You can set up slide shows containing a series of media files including sound accompaniment in various ways. This also is easily done. An album is created with the graphics sequenced in the order of appearance, and then various sequence parameters are selected from a Slideshow Preferences window. That's the slide show. Turning the show on by punching the Slideshow Icon plays the sequence with any music selected. It worked that simply.

JMC offers a lot of features to expedite and enhance the use of multimedia elements and is worth the $40 catalog price.