StudioVisit is designed for iPhone and iPod Touch, and is compatible with the iPad. StudioVisit does not yet support the higher-resolution Retina display on the iPhone 4.

That depends on the storage space each photo takes. About 2.5 megabytes of memory is available to store images, enough for 25 photos of 100K (kilobytes) each. StudioVisit warns you about including any photo larger than 100K. Many images prepared for web display are about 50K, allowing up to 50 photos of this size in a portfolio. (However, this many images is likely to be unwieldy in practice. A number between 10 and 20 photos is likely to be much more usable. This is especially true of older, slower devices such as the iPhone 3 or 3G.)

Photos in the iPhone or iPod are stored as JPEG compressed images. In Settings, you can choose the JPEG quality to apply when transferring an image to your portfolio. Quality 10 results in the smallest-memory images (and therefore the largest number of possible slides); quality 100 produces very large-memory images. (Apple recommends quality settings of 10 to 50.) You can choose in Settings to have the size and quality of each photo displayed when you are adding photos.

Yes. Portfolio images are imported directly from the Camera or the Photo Albums. To include a web image, first display it in mobile Safari. Press and hold on the image, and, when prompted, choose to save the image to your Photo Albums. Later, you can select it for inclusion in your StudioVisit portfolio.

Choosing a higher quality setting makes a more 'zoomable' photo. But the most important factor is not the quality setting but the number of pixels in the original photo. For example, most photos from the web are only a few inches big an have a low resolution (e.g., 72 ppi). These photos, even at a high quality setting, remain un-zoomable. A photo from a digital camera is not only large in inches but also in resolution; even at a lower quality setting such a photo can be expanded successfully.

Yes. Use Settings to choose the time delay between slide changes. To begin the show, click the standard 'play' symbol on the bar below the slide. To pause it, click the 'pause' symbol.

You can show or hide captions using Settings. While the portfolio is being displayed, tap to hide the controls and view only the image; tap again to show the controls. Use the arrows at left and right of the bottom bar to step through the slides manually, or swipe left or right with your finger to move between slides

No. Since memory is limited, the most sensible use of StudioVisit is to reserve the available memory for one portfolio. As more memory becomes available in portable devices like the iPhone, it may be possible in future to create multiple portfolios.

The first thing you see after the opening screen is StudioVisit's main menu, shown at right. This menu lists the activities needed to create, edit, and view your portfolio.

Click on a heading below for a guide to each activity.

The art work that appears on this site is by my wife, the artist Prilla Smith Brackett. You can see more of her work here. The actual studio door photo was kindly lent by Dorothy Gantenbein, whose work appears here.

Follow these steps to add photos to your portfolio:

1. Click a button to choose a photo from the Photo Albums, or to add a photo by taking one with the Camera. After you click the button, the Photo Albums or Camera appears. Make your selection or take your photo. The photo is copied to the Add Photos page at the quality you selected in Settings. The photo size and quality is reported if you have chosen that option in Settings.
2. The new photo will display in the area below the buttons. If the photo is a large one (over 100K), you will be warned about memory limits. You can choose to get a different image, or to keep the large one.
3. If you wish, add a caption by clicking in the white area below the image. Type using the standard keyboard which slides into view. A caption can contain one, two or three lines of text.
4. Click the green Save button to add the photo to your portfolio. After a confirming message, the photo clears, ready for you to add another photo to the portfolio.
5. You can continue adding photos until ready to do another activity. You will not be allowed to add more photos than will fit in memory.
6. Click the Done button to return to the menu.

The Edit Portfolio screen lists all of the photos or slides in your portfolio. Each listing displays a thumbnail image and the first line of the caption. Drag to scroll up or down to reveal the listing you're interested in.

Each listing also contains three types of buttons to perform editing on the slide:

1. Click the button with the standard delete symbol to delete the slide from the portfolio. A message will appear allowing you to cancel. Once deleted, the slide is not recoverable.
2. Click the button with a pencil on it to edit the slide contents on a screen very much like the Add Photo screen (but titled 'Edit Photo'). On that screen you can exchange the photo for another, and you can add, edit or delete the caption.
3. Click the blue buttons with the little arrows to move the slide forward (up) or backward (down) in the portfolio.
4. When you are finished editing, click the Back button (4) to return to the menu.

Every portfolio is viewed starting from the first slide, with controls visible, as shown.

1. Click the play button for an automatic show. Use Settings to select the time delay between slide changes.
2. Alternatively, click the arrow buttons to step through the slides manually. Or swipe left or right with your finger to move between slides.
3. Captions appear on a semi-transparent background. Use Settings to turn them on or off.
4. Tap in the middle of the screen to hide the controls at top and bottom. Tap again to show them.
5. Click the Back button to return to the menu.

In Settings, you can control how your portfolio is created and viewed.

1. Click the Slide Delay tab to change the time each slide is shown in an automatic show. Choose a delay from 2 to 20 seconds using the control shown. Click the Done button when finished.
2. Click the checkbox to show or hide captions.
3. Click the Photo Quality tab to select a photo quality between 10 and 100. The larger the quality, the larger the photo size in memory and the fewer the number of photos you can fit in your portfolio. Quality settings above 50 are not recommended.
4. Click the checkbox to have the size and quality of each photo reported as it is being transferred to StudioVisit.
5. Click the checkbox to allow photo editing by moving and scaling. Photo editing produces a square image containing the most important part of the original photo, or a detail selected from an expanded photo.
6. Click the Back button to return to the menu.