Photo slideshow software is a dime a dozen these days and it’s getting harder and harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. For photographers looking to present their work in the most professional manner possible, this can be tricky business since it’s hard to impress clients when you’re running the same dopey iPhoto knockoff your uncle used to show his Grand Canyon pictures to the Rotary Club.
With so many cheesy programs on the market, it’s nice to see a company that takes slideshows seriously. Austin, Texas-based Photodex has been making software for 20 years and that experience shows in ProShow Producer 3.0, a sophisticated slideshow program that has almost as many layers as Photoshop but is twice as easy to use.
“Slideshow” is actually a bit of an understatement since ProShow Producer 3.0 is really a multimedia presentation program that can juggle RAW files, audio and video clips, color profiles, digital proofing tasks, and a host of editing and artistic effects.
There’s also lots of output flexibility with Producer 3.0 which should appeal to photographers looking to make life easy for their clients. Producer 3.0 presentations can be converted to 14 different formats including, DVD, CD and recently added HD Video, Flash, and Quicktime files.
The one red flag that popped up for me while testing out this program is that it’s PC-only. That’s a shame since I think many photographers who use Apple would appreciate having a program this powerful to showcase their images.
Pimp Your Slideshow
Creating a quick slideshow with Producer 3.0 is not hard. The real learning curve with this program is narrowing down the options and there are plenty here.
While the easy drag-and-drop interface will help you create a basic slideshow in minutes, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to customize every aspect of your presentation from adjusting the timing of transitions via a time-line interface; to tweaking titles and captions to give them different looks and effects including text motion; to adding multiple layers and masking to individual slides. There are 280 different effects in the transition picker alone and while half of them might not be to your taste, that still leaves 140 quality options to choose from.
New features to Producer 3.0 include motion keyframing which lets you create a series of motion paths on single slide so it will float around on the screen for a more dramatic impact. I created one where a bride and groom embraced for a passionate kiss that lingered romantically from the bottom corner of the screen to the top corner before disappearing.
Other interesting new tools include a way to create a mask out of a layer to block out parts of the underlying layers in each slide which is particularly effective for silhouettes; a Chroma Key Transparency feature to create Hollywood-style “green screen” effects; and a new Vignettes feature for adding funky borders and frames. Again, not all these effects will be appropriate for your images or personal style, but there are so many options, you’re bound to find one you like.
My one other gripe about the software is that I wish there were more demos and tutorials included with the program. A basic introductory tutorial appears when you first launch Producer 3.0 but for any additional support you need to visit the Photodex website. There are some good resources on the site but I’d like to see more examples from different photographers of what they were able to create with this powerful program. Creativity breeds creativity, I always say.
The Bottom Line
If you’re looking to kick your photo slideshows up a couple of notches, ProShow Producer 3.0 from Photodex is one of the most sophisticated and powerful image presentation programs I’ve worked with. Though it’s not cheap and its PC-only status will turn off some photographers, ProShow Producer 3.0 is a deep dive multimedia presentation program for serious photographers. Your uncle’s slideshow software, it’s definitely not.
Pros: Incredible amounts of customization available; easy drag-and-drop interface; output on 14 different formats
Cons: PC only; more tutorials and demos should be offered on installation disk
Price: $250
Further information: Photodex
