Photodex, the makers of ProShow Producer, claim its product will produce professional-quality slideshows, and it certainly delivers on that claim. Photodex ProShow Producer creates amazing slideshows. You can rotate a photo, zoom in or out, and pan along a photo, as well as use many more effects that make your photos almost come to life. Photodex ProShow Producer is full of many features yet it is easy to use them. Within less than a half hour I created a very impressive slideshow that I couldn’t wait to show to people. I then spent more enjoyable hours tweaking every bit of my slideshow because it was so fun and easy to do. Photodex ProShow Producer has many more features that take a while longer to learn, but I was impressed with how much you could do in a short time.
What's Hot: Photodex ProShow Producer enables you to make stunning professional looking slideshows. You can incorporate movement into still photos and choose from an amazing selection of transitions. You can output in a number of different formats:
DVD.
Share Show Online.
Video File in a number of formats:
AVI compressed.
AVI Uncompressed.
Flash Video.
MPEG1.
MPEG2.
QuickTime.
Windows Media.
Streaming Web Show.
VCD Disc.
PC Executable.
Flash Web Show.
Auto Run CD.
Email Executable.
PC Screen Saver.
[ See Screenshot: Output Options.jpg]
You can add and edit music tracks. You can also add sounds, such as voiceovers, to individual slides. When
you add a music track, it will show you how long that track plays compared to the length of the slide show. With a single click you can sync the time of the music track with the slideshow so it automatically adjusts the times of each slide and each transition.
You can edit individual slides to take out red-eye, add contrast or colors. Changing the opacity, the brightness and so on and so forth are also available options.
What's Not: The option to email a show was troublesome because it didn’t work by simply choosing this feature. The help section explained that you had to configure this option because of firewall constraints. Even after doing this,however, my email provider rejected the file as being too large an attachment.
What's Hot: The first screen you are presented with in Photodex ProShow Producer is the work area divided into separate panes. There are a number of different panes which can be hidden or shown as needed.
[See screenhot: Work Area.jpg]
One pane shows the folders on PC. You select which folder contains your photos, and then these photos are displayed in a second pane.
[See screenshot: Select Photos.jpg]
You then can select your photos from this second pane and they will be put in a third pane as a timeline.
[See screenshot: Put Photos into Timeline.jpg]
The next pane is a preview pane, and when you select play, it will play the current version of your slideshow.
There is also a pane along bottom of screen where you drag your music track. The music track is selected from the Folders pane.
If you want to change the appearance of a slide you double click on it, and a new window is opened with the different options in the left hand margin. In this window you will find:
Layers.
Photo Editing.
Effects.
Motion – Pan, Zoom, Rotate.
Captions.
Caption Motion.
Sounds.
Background.
[See screenshot: Slide Options.jpg]
I loved playing with the Motion effect. There are two windows on the Motions screen. One shows the photo in its starting position while the other is its ending position. You can simulate movement by having an object appear in one part of the starting window and then in a different part of the ending window. This enables you to move the object left to right, right to left, top to bottom, and so on. You can also rotate, and zoom in or out on either window. You can then preview this slide within this screen. The preview plays the slide before, the slide you are changing and the slide after.
I like that the zoom bar gives an actual value. This means that you can take part of the picture as the start screen and another part of picture for end screen. Make sure that they are the same magnification, and then add the movement effect.
[See screenshot: Motion Effects.jpg]
It is so easy and such fun to play the preview of the slideshow and while it plays you can pause the action. The slider shows you the slide that you have stopped on making it easy to double click on the correct slide or transition. Tweak the effects that you want and then restart the slideshow. It is so easy to do this that it makes you just want to sit there, doing more and more enhancements.
Between each slide is a transition icon. When you click on this icon, the transition window is launched. You can mouse over to any of the over 280 transitions to see a preview of the transition in the preview window. This really helps to select just the right effect.
[See screenshot: Transition Screen.jpg]
What's Not: The light box feature of Photodex ProShow Producer is used to rearrange slides. It can be dragged out into its own window. Even in its own window, I didn’t find it that easy drag and drop slides into a new position.
What's Hot: There are extra options that can be accessed and downloaded from the toolbar which include:
Menu Themes.
Photo Borders.
Backgrounds For Slides.
Layer Masks.
Show Templates.
[See screenshot: Extras.jpg]
What's Hot: There is plenty of on screen help as well as a link to the Photodex website with answers to many questions. They also have 24/7 email support. I had problems creating a format that would work on my iPhone. I emailed tech support asking for help with this. I received an email back within two hours referring to a web page that outlined how to do this. It wasn’t just a question of choosing the QuickTime format, but also selecting MPEG4 Compressor from the options.
I didn't use the on screen help very much because I found it easy to find my way around the software. The only problem I had was producing a file for emailing. This was addressed in the online technical support area although it didn’t solve the problem because my email provider rejected such a large attachment.
Photodex also offers training courses around the country. These look like they would be fun to try.
There are a number of online tutorials on the Photodex website which are good to watch before you begin. The photos that they use in the tutorial are available for download in order for you to follow along as you watch the tutorial. You can also print out the tutorial and work through it that way.
It should be easier to produce an output file for use on the iPhone. I have used other products where you only need to specify that you need an iPhone format.
The light box feature is not as good as it could be. It isn't so easy to rearrange the slides, therefore I think this is a necessary feature.
I really enjoyed using Photodex ProShow Producer. It is exceptionally user friendly and is designed to make it simple to find out how to do things. The more advanced functions were explained well in tutorials. I found it difficult to tear myself away from using this product to write this review as I just wanted to keep creating more slideshows from all my photos. It’s not an inexpensive product but I would spend the money on it because I love the slideshows that it produces.