Multimedia Slideshows with your Images

Take your photos and add transitions and music to make them come alive. There are a variety of programs all featuring drag and drop capabilities. Try out the free programs and trials to find the program that works best for you. Once you get started, you’ll have fun, fun, fun…

Windows MovieMaker
Windows Movie Maker 2 makes home movies amazingly fun. With Movie Maker 2, you can create, edit, and share your home movies right on your computer. Build your movie with a few simple drag-and-drops. Share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. Web upload requires an online account or personal web space with FTP.
Streaming Demo: http://www.keithmack.com/electrify/keithphoto.wmv
Publishing Options: WMV (only), CD, DV Camera, Web
Cost: FREE

PhotoJam 4
Create multimedia slide shows with your images, a sound track, and visual effects. Choose from several styles for your show, including 1980s music video, old-style film, collage, and art film. This version gives you the ability to share your media by sending friends an e-mail with a URL at Shockwave.com; it also lets you access 100 songs from ten genres. Compared to the free trial version, PhotoJam Pro adds more style choices, photo editing features, full-screen playback, and a screen-saver option. For archiving, PhotoJam Pro also lets you publish your show to a CD-ROM or a personal Web site.
Web Demo: http://www.photoshow.net/scripts_main/build/player.php?show=jJGNcMDjd
Publishing Options: CD, DVD, Web (saves only in Flash/Shockwave format)
Cost: $29.95 (the demo version has a two hour window for trial use)

Pinnacle Instant PhotoAlbum (designed to share via DVD player)
Instant PhotoAlbum is the quickest and easiest way to organize all of your digital photos and video clips, make interactive slideshows complete with synchronized music, narration, and transition effects, and ultimately burn the results to a DVD disc that can be played in your living room DVD player. Instant PhotoAlbum includes an image editor with professional features such as automatic red-eye removal and color, brightness and contrast correction. You can even add text and special effects to your photos.
Publishing Options: CD, DVD
Note: You can get a temp MPG file from: My Documents-Pinnacle Instant PhotoAlbum-Pinnacle Instant PhotoAlbum Temp.
Cost: $29.95

Pinnacle Studio 9 (video software)
Studio Version 9 gives you every tool you need to easily capture video to your computer, edit it, add titles, music, narration and special effects and then output a finished movie back to videotape, DVD and the web (free registration required).
Web Demo: http://www.studioonline.com/playvideos.asp?MediaTypeID=1&crypt=B289D844CF35C74F
Publishing Options: MPG, WMV, RealNetworks, AVI, CD, DVD, Web
Cost: $75

PowerPoint
Newer versions of PowerPoint have a photo album feature. Go to Insert menu and then select Picture and New Photo Album. Once you navigate to your photos you can quickly add them to a slideshow. Then all you have to do is sort and add transitions and sound (format sound to play over all slides in show). To save for EVERYONE select Save As PowerPoint Show (*.pps). This format puts everything together that is needed to share the slideshow. You may want to format slides to advance automatically after four seconds and you may also want to loop the show.
Web Demo: http://www.keithmack.com/electrify/powerpoint (web output)
PowerPoint Show Demo: http://www.keithmack.com/electrify/powerpoint/photoalbum.pps
Publishing Options: HTML, PowerPoint Show (.pps)
Cost: NA

Electrify Images Workshop | Overview | Multimedia Tools | Web Photo Albums
Software Compared | Get Handouts (Word)

 

Keith Mack