Swedish web album creation tool jAlbum has reached a landmark release. jAlbum 10.0, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, sees a number of new features and expanded image format support alongside a change in licensing terms. Previous versions of the software were available as a freeware license; the new version switches to free for non-commercial use.
Commercial users, and those who wish to remove ads and jAlbum branding from their web albums, will now need to purchase the Pro version for $55. Anyone with a Premium or Power subscription to jAlbum’s online storage service will get a complementary Pro license while their sub lasts.
Version 10 introduces a number of new and improved features to jAlbum’s arsenal. A new “Embed album” feature makes it easy to incorporate photo albums into existing websites and blogs. Skin developers will be able to manually tweak the appearance of the album to the existing site’s design via a new embed.htt template file.
Another major addition is the ability to move album elements, specifically folders and images, between different album projects. Version 10 also expands the program’s support for specific image formats, most notably TIF and partial support for Photoshop’s native PSD format.
jAlbum now offers full XMP metadata support, allowing users to view and edit photo’s metadata (including caption, title and keywords) within jAlbum itself. This information can then be exchanged with other XMP-aware applications like Photoshop. This new feature comes with a tool -- accessible from Tools > External Tools -- that allows you to inject file metadata into old album projects.
Other changes include new filter bar options -- color/flag and XMP label -- and the ability to flag images by color during slideshows using the [6]-[9] keys. Albums are now created more quickly, the upload button now defaults to the advanced upload window for those albums hosted outside of jAlbum’s servers.
jAlbum 10.0 is available now as a free download for Windows, Mac (OS X 10.4 or later) and Linux. It requires Java 1.5 or later to be installed.