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.