About this article Over the years, we at ZATZ have had the opportunity to publish articles by some well known authors and true experts in the field. When we set out to review Nero 6 Ultra Edition, we really wanted to find someone who truly understood the product. No one could possibly have a better, comprehensive perspective of Nero than Wallace Wang, author of The Book of Nero. The Book of Nero published by No Starch Press (at http://www.nostarch.com/nero.htm), guides readers into understanding the various features of Nero, one of the most powerful CD and DVD burning programs on the market today. We're thrilled that Wally's able to write this review for us. And now, Wallace Wang's review...

Nero's greatest strengths involve burning music and data to CD or DVD, but Nero also includes several features that may be of particular interest to both still and video photographers interested in storing and presenting their work on CD or DVD. This article will cover those features.

Making a slideshow
While you could store digital images on a CD or DVD as just another collection of files, Nero gives you the option to arrange your digital images in a slideshow complete with background music and visual transitions that appear between each image.

No matter how perfect your digital images may appear, they may still contain a few blemishes such as appearing slightly darker or lighter than you might want. Rather than rely on a separate digital editing program like Adobe Photoshop Elements to modify your images, you can modify your digital images directly within Nero itself. It's nice to be able to quickly modify the brightness and contrast of an image.

Once you've edited your digital images, you may want to add special effects to them. At the simplest level, you can rotate images or make them appear as negatives (dark images appear light and light images appear dark). Nero also includes features to pinch or swirl images as shown in Figure A, or apply filters so your images can appear as if seen through a mosaic.

FIGURE A

The Swirl command lets you create unique visual effects using your digital images Click picture for a larger image.

Just looking at a slideshow of images might be interesting, but Nero also lets you add a background soundtrack of your favorite music. Once you've arranged your images in the proper order, added transitions and a soundtrack, you can burn the whole thing to a CD or DVD to distribute to others.