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What Are the Different Types of Multimedia Software?
Photo editing, media player, and video editing programs are part of daily life for many people. If a person rotates or brightens photos or listens to music on a computer, he or she is already familiar with some types of multimedia software. In addition, presentation software is commonly found in business, educational, and entertainment environments to aid communication in meetings. These types of multimedia software come pre-installed on some operating systems, are available free online, or taught in classrooms.
Also known as graphic editing or photo retouching software, photo editing software is a type of multimedia software that allows the user to alter images. These programs can be simple or incredibly advanced; in fact, sometimes higher education institutions offer courses in the most popular photo editing software. This type of multimedia software gives a user the ability to manipulate photos in countless ways, including changing its color, removing objects, and tweaking the features of people and objects.
Music media players are digital music players that often allow a user to rename and organize song titles and information and play the official music video or a substitute. These devices are also sometimes built to ease exporting music onto a physical device. In many cases, a music media player also works as a video player, and can be set to automatically show video the user attempts to run. This is another type of multimedia software that usually comes with a new computer’s operating system, though many people choose to un-install it in favor of their preferred open source, resource-saving, or simply aesthetically appealing media player.
With video editing software, users can manipulate digital video, like deleting scenes, adding scenes, and slowing or speeding the video up in certain parts. Like photo editing software, the difficulty level of this kind of multimedia software varies considerably. For example, many computer operating systems come with a basic or intermediate video editing program. These programs are not as advanced as the software used to edit high budget television or Internet entertainment shows.
Presentation software contains some elements of a graphics software, but the rest of its capabilities and purpose are much different. This type of multimedia software is frequently used to create slide slows for presentations. It typically allows the user to at least add and edit text, insert and manipulate graphics, and create a slide show out of the finished project. Advanced programs have many more capabilities, like video in addition to text, graphics, and slides.
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![Portable media players use multimedia software.]()
By: ambritsPortable media players use multimedia software. -
![Photo editing software is a type of multimedia software that allows the user to alter images.]()
By: Syda ProductionsPhoto editing software is a type of multimedia software that allows the user to alter images. -
![Multimedia software is frequently used to create slide slows for presentations.]()
By: Gandolfo CannatellaMultimedia software is frequently used to create slide slows for presentations. -
![Multimedia software might be used to create an online advertising campaign.]()
By: auremarMultimedia software might be used to create an online advertising campaign.
Discussion Comments
@NathanG - Since you mentioned video, let’s not forget that all important component of audio. So many home movies or low budget films pay scant attention to audio, resulting in an amateur production.
To that end, there are some really powerful audio multimedia software programs you can get to help you out. These programs let you open and save sound files at different bit rates, increase volume levels, add sound effects like echo and flange, and do things like pan silence in and out at different points of the audio clip.
I used to open my video clips directly in the audio program so I could edit the sound directly in video, then save it back out to video again. This saved me the step of laying down a separate audio track later.
@NathanG - It's true that the tools have definitely evolved through the years so that now anyone can create their own content, whether its graphics, video or audio.
You don’t have to spend $1,000 either – you can download basic multimedia software over the Internet; some of it is shareware, no more than $100; other programs are free.
They’re not as powerful as the big software tools like Flash or Photoshop, but they’re a lot cheaper and they can give you a chance to get a feel for how you like the tools.
@nony - Yeah, graphics and multimedia software has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for people wanting to develop their own creative content to communicate their ideas.
I don’t know much about Macromedia but I got started in video editing in the late 1990s. I was running a Pentium 2 computer with about 256 MB of RAM, certainly not a lot by today’s standards, and yet I was able to edit video on my computer with ease.
I used Firewire cable and I had a digital camcorder. Sometimes rendering took awhile but it was rare that the whole program crashed.
I loved adding transitions, special effects, sound effects and captions to my videos, making them look like professional, polished productions.
I think the big stride in multimedia software has been in making the tools user friendly, so that even those of us who are not video professionals can use them with ease.
One of the first multimedia software programs I used years ago was Macromedia Director. I spent $1,000 for the entire Macromedia Suite and I had big visions of what I was going to do with the software.
I had finished a four year stint of teaching ESL, and saw how multimedia was being used as a teaching tool. One teacher I met was a published author in Australia who had developed his own teaching software using Macromedia. I was amazed at what his software could do.
Upon returning to the States, I decided I would try to develop computer based training applications. I soon realized, however, that I didn’t know enough about the programming end to get up to speed quickly.
I managed to eke out a few games but that was it. It was still fun, however, and I still believe in using multimedia as an educational tool.
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