3. Playback Options

The Playback menu has significantly fewer options than the Capture menu. If you select the Image Advice option while viewing a picture, the R827 will analyze the photo and display advice on how you could improve the image. There's also an option for Image Information, which displays fairly rudimentary information on ISO speed, shooting mode, file name/size, time and date and image quality level. The R827 does not show histograms - a feature popular with photo enthusiasts.

The playback menu also lets you create a slide show (Figure 7), stitch together photos previously shot in the Panorama mode, or attach a voice recording to an image. There's also an option for copying images from the camera's built-in 32 MB of memory onto your SD card.

Figure 7: Slideshow menu

The Design Gallery is where you can have a lot of fun. You can apply artistic effects to your photos such as ink dots, watercolor, slimming, center focus, posterize, soft glow, etc. There are 14 effects to choose from. You can also modify colors, add borders (Figure 8) from a selection of ten, correct red eye, rotate or even crop the image.

Figure 8: Design Gallery Add Borders option

The Settings menu controls camera functions such as screen brightness, volume, display timeout, instant review time, date and time, language and digital zoom. A feature we found particularly useful was the built-in help. Not only is help available for each configuration option, but the Help tab also has entries for Top Ten Tips, Camera Buttons, Using Shooting Modes, etc. The 16 categories of help are complete enough that you'll probably never need to look at the electronic version of the users manual!