Making a photo slideshow with music has become extremely popular in the age of digital photography. Slideshows are fun to create and share. Avid photographers have probably tried a number of free or commercial applications for making picture movies. Some want slideshow software to be packed with features and customization tools, others look for convenience and usability, still others need rich output options.
In this review we’ll take a look at Photo Slideshow Creator 3.0 from AMS Software. Being developed since 2005, this photo to video converter has by now become a powerful all-in-one application. It will meet the needs of both professional photographers and non-tech savvy home users. The trial version of Photo Slideshow Creator is freely available from the official website.
Let’s go through the key features of Photo Slideshow Creator 3.0 from launch to final production stage.
When you start the program, a wizard suggests choosing between creating a slideshow from scratch and using Slideshow Templates. Templates allow preparing the project in 3 steps: theme, photos, soundtrack. The wizard-driven mode is perfect for studying the program features and last-minute projects. Experienced users will definitely prefer the manual mode with the classical storyboard and full control over all tools.
When it comes to arranging slides and transitions, Photo Slideshow Creator has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, along with an ability to add a folder full of photos, or apply a certain transition or background theme to all slides. By clicking the Edit Slide button you get access to the properties of the current slide – here you can adjust everything from duration and zoom to text captions and effects. At every stage of the work it’s easy to preview the project from current slide, or open full-screen preview.
Special effects deserve a special mention. In addition to pan-and-zoom and rotation effects found in many similar programs today, Photo Slideshow Creator 3.0 introduces a selection of artistic effects based on color filters. There are tools for standard image enhancement – brightness, contrast, saturation, and fancy filters like mosaic, old film, color hue, etc. Playing with colors becomes even more exciting thanks to effect faders. You can apply more than several effects to each slide, and make some fade in and others fade out – this unique feature lets you create fantastic impressions.
We cannot imagine a movie without a soundtrack. Managing audio is very convenient in Photo Slideshow Creator. Add any number of songs in MP3, WMA, or WAV, or your own voice narration in one of these formats. To adjust audio duration, cut the soundtrack in the program, or synchronize it with the slides. You can also loop music or shuffle several soundtracks; music faders are there as well.
At the export stage, the slideshow can be converted to a number of common video formats, a self-running EXE file, or a screensaver. DVD burning is integrated too. Converting the slideshow to video, choose between standard AVI or MP4, mobile-optimized video, and Web-friendly formats for sharing online. Output formats include HD-ready and Full HD. The video settings such as codec, bit rate, frame rate, aspect ratio, as well as the audio stream settings, are optimized for each type of video. However, you can easily access and modify these settings.
All in all, Photo Slideshow Creator 3.0 is certain to meet your expectations if you’re looking for a powerful photo-video converter with creative tools. At the photo slideshow software website you will find extensive supporting materials: online tutorials, video lessons and demos
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