Photodex ProShow Producer Software Review: What's Not To Love? - Quality Slideshow Software For Impressive Slideshows

Photodex ProShow Producer Software Review: What's Not To Love? - Quality Slideshow Software For Impressive Slideshows
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Introduction

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.

Price to Value (4 out of 5)

What’s Hot:&nbspPhotodex ProShow Producer is not inexpensive at $249. However, I think it is well worth this price. The end results are very impressive and extremely professional looking.

Installation & Setup (4 out of 5)

What’s Hot: The software can be downloaded from the website. It took about two minutes to install, and then required a restart of the PC. I had no problems with the installation. I installed it on my PC running Vista 64bit.

Product Features (5 out of 5)

What’s Hot:&nbsp

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:&nbspThe 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.

User Interface (5 out of 5)

What’s Hot:&nbsp

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.

Performance (4 out of 5)

What’s Hot:&nbsp

There are extra options that can be accessed and downloaded from the toolbar which include:

Menu Themes.

Help & Support (5 out of 5)

What’s Hot:&nbsp

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.

Security & Privacy (4 out of 5)

What’s Hot:&nbspPhotodex ProShow Producer allows you to select an image as a watermark which will appear on all the slides in the show. This helps brand your show.

Images

Output Options

Work Area

Select Photos

Put Photos into Timeline

Slide Options

Motion Effects

Transition Screen

Extras

Suggested Features

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.

Conclusion

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.