I know the question has been asked here before but I'd like to know what people are using and why for general purposes rather more than professional.
I ask because I need to create a slideshow as a favour for a very good friend (of his holiday over in the West Indies) and another very good friend needs to create a number of slide shows of a two-month-long walking trip in the foothills of the Andes.
Naturally, the requirements (possibly mutually exclusive) include:
* Ease of use (but masses of features, such as background music; transitions; etc)
* Low (or no) cost
* Ability to burn to DVD or CD (ideally both)
Oh, and since I do have access to quite a few video editing programs, would folk recommend any such program in particular (I'm thinking especially of the Ulead family)?
Oh (2), and comments about any must-have features (or general tips) would, of course, also be massively appreciated.
TIA
Cheers
Bob
My colleague Ann uses Proshow Producer 3 to turn out slideshows that are feature rich while being very easy to use. The previous version was bug ridden and she abandoned it but with Vers 3 she has no trouble, loads of transitions and effects including animated slide in titles.
What I have noticeed most of all is the utter ease and speed you can construct a polished end product, I would strongly suggest your download the trial.
Just one point, she never uses the inbuilt DVD writer, I think this is where most people go wrong, she always gets it to make an ISO on her hard drive and uses Nero for the burning.
Bob,
might not be any good for burning slideshows to DVD's but for your friend who has no doubt gathered many hundreds of photo's of his trip through the Andes, he might want to consider looking at Adobe Lightroom as it is pretty good for cataloging your images, allowing you to make quite a few adjustments and also allowing you to export slideshows and flash slideshows for including in your websites, and they are pretty smart, I could show you a couple of examples.
I should also highlight that Apple's Aperture is a competitor of Lightroom and may also have most if not all of these features but since I haven't tried it, I don't know for sure.
I would really recommend Lightroom to anyone who has lots of photos and wants to keep track of them because, if you are like me, you will have photo's all over the place.
You might also want to have a look at Google's Picassa as that is a freebie and you can also create slideshows etc.. with it.
cheers John
Thanks Claire and John!
Any more for any more?
Cheers
Bob
Hi Bob,
New feature in Adobe Encore v2.0 was 'slideshow editor'.
Haven't used it in this context - costs nowt if you have it already..don't know if that's help or hinderance?
Whatever you choose, I'd do a short test sequence/show first, start to end.. including the projector/laptop combo if that's you chosen display method.
Bob,
I use the Ulead DVD Pictureshow software from time to time. Pretty straight forward product for a slide show. You can download a free trial from the Ulead site.
John
Thanks for all the comments so far!
I've started to have a little fiddle with one program I already have installed here (Ulead DVD MovieFactory 4) and will also take a look at another - Picasa.
Nonetheless, I'd be delighted to receive further suggestions/recommendations.
Cheers
Bob
Proshow Gold. Very easy and quick.
BobA
ProShow Gold is really good and you get a lengthy free trial period. Tiny learning curve too. I did this slideshow with it of photos I took at a friend's 40th birthday party.
Bob,
Just realised that I have a kosher version of Proshow Gold 2.0, which I've just installed and will be fiddling with, of course.
However, are there any BIG improvements with V3 that I ought to consider?
TIA
Bob
Sorry Bob I have version 2.0, over to you Chris.
BobA
The layers is one of the headline new features, there's more output options (but for the likes of us who can use stand-alone encoders it's not a big deal)
For a full list go to http://www.photodex.com/support/revisions/proshowgold/ then scroll down to Version 3.0.1887
Chris (and Bob) - thanks!
Cheers
Bob
Well, I've just been sitting down with Proshow Gold 2.0 and the person who took the pics (in Grenada, West Indies).
We put about 320 shots into a slide show with little effort and, in so doing, realised that there are lot of good tools to help.
I am impressed!
The work-flow is excellent, too.
A number of the shots needed a lift and that was very easy to do and very effective, and the zoom tool works nicely as well.
About the only downside was that, as the project gets bigger, the program takes a while to ingest a batch of pics that you drop on the timeline - this on a dual core (E6600) PC with 2GB RAM and Win XP Pro.
Nonetheless, I do now understand why people are so keen on the program - it's rather splendid!
So thanks VERY much for the recommendations!
All (?) I need to do now is add some music and maybe some titles and then burn it off to DVD.
And create a nice DVD library-case cover, of course. Oh, and a suitable design for the DVD face.
Again, many thanks!
Cheers
Bob