Hello All,

I use ProShow Producer, and I love it, except that it doesn't make nice small flash slideshows like ShowIt and others.

But the reason I haven't switched is that I don't know of any software that puts frames around the images, so that when they some in, the image edge doesn't flail about. It looks so much more polished with frames, IMO. Check out my little with frames and without frames samples. Which do you like better? And is there any ShowIt-esque software that can produce this kind of output?

Thanks,

-TM

don't know if there is a way to do this in Showit, but you can easy create an action in Photoshop that will do the same thing. Just run the action on the images you want to use in your show --maybe resize them as well so your show is created quicker--and voila! you've got the same thing in Showit as you are showing here.

It's very simple. Just open the image, select all, and add a stroke of 1-5 pixels in the color of your choice.

Yes, that will add a border, but the border will zoom with the image. Did you watch the clips I provided?

-TM

I prefer it without the frames, personally. I also prefer larger images.

As far as I know SIW doesn't have this option.

sorry, no. They didn't play. They were just static html pages. I do understand what you mean now, and, no, I'm pretty sure Showit doesn't have a solution like that. . .wait, Ill bet you can customize your html page that presents your Showit show and create a static border like that. Perhaps someone that knows more about customizing the html pages for Showit can give a better answer. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

No, that won't work either, as the images are both portrait and landscape orientation. Do you see the initial image? If you don't have broadband, they may take a while to load, but they should play on any computer with Flash.

-TM



Bummer. Any other slideshow packages I should look at?

-TM

ahhhh, I see what you mean. You're right, that won't work.

I'm on a 6GB line, just a sec, I'll go back and check. . .maybe I didn't give it enough time to load. . .


OK--it worked (sorry, again)--just took about 90 secs to load--was it only 4 or 5 images?

Are you sure? Web Output feature is Flash and PX as detailed here:
http://www.photodex.com/products/producer/specs.html

I don't understand the question. Why not just use ShowIt? Frames are not necessary since the edges don't flail about anyway. Am I missing something? You want something BESIDES ShowIt?

Yes, it does output to flash, but it's a flash movie, so the 5 second clips I've posted are 8 megs. ShowIt, in contrast, uses a data file which stores the still images and then, at runtime, executes the animation according to metadata stored in it's data file. Therefore the data file can be quite small, as it stores merely still images and instructions on how to animate them. That's why ShowIt shows load so quickly.

So yes, PSP does output flash, but the output is about 20x larger than the corresponding ShowIt output, so it's not practical for web shows, IMO.

-TM




Hi Jules,

Did you watch the two clips I provided? The difference should be immediately obvious. I don't believe ShowIt can produce the framed outupt.

-TM

I'm not sure what you are asking for other than a white border around your images, but I think the 2nd show looks best.

Hi Jill,

In the "with frames" version, there's a border around the image, so that as the image zooms in or out, that outer edge remains constant. If you do a "zoom and pan" without the border, then you'll see one edge of the photo move at a different rate than the other, and it can be quite distracting.

If you like the "without frames" version better, then you're lucky, because that's all that seems to be available out there.

-TM

Hi, yes, I did watch the two samples and the difference is obvious, the framed ones don't flail about at the edges. BUT, what I don't get is why use something that makes the edges flail about when you could use ShowIt, which doesn't have the flailing edge problem in the first place?

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't like the look of the frames, and I don't like the look of the flailing edges, so why not just use ShowIt and get the best of both worlds? No frames, no flailing.

I think the zooming in the samples looks unsteady too. I find it distracting. Sorry to be so negative. I still think I don't quite understand the question you're asking.

Hi Jules,

First, let me say that I'm proud to have coined the term "flailing edges" for slideshows.

Yes, the clips I posted suck because ProShow doesn't make non-video flash slideshows, as mentioned above. Their native slideshow zooms even cleaner that ShowIt, but it's PC only. Grr!

Check out this slideshow I grabbed from the slideshow forum. The edges are flailing, right?

-TM

I use SlideShowPro (www.slideshowpro.net) and love it... the only downside is that you have to have Flash to use it.

Hi John,

So SlideShowPro has something that stops the flailing edges? Does it even do slideshows with Ken Burns set to music, or is it a UI for allowing the user to manually control slide progression? Form the website, it appears to be the latter.

-TM

No, on my Mac, there is no flailing edges with that show. When I run quick time slide shows (like made in iPhoto), there is SERIOUS flailing edges on my Mac.

Hi Jules,

Maybe I didn't explain what I mean. When I watch a showIt show on my PC, when you see a protrait-orientation slide, and the slide zooms in, the outside edges of the image remain visible and move outward from the center of the image as it zooms. In the "with frames" sample, as the image zooms, the screen size alloted to viewing the image is constrained by the frame, so as the image zooms, the part of the image that would have been outside the dimensions of the image at it's most zoomed out are cropped by the frame, so that the size of the visible portion of the image remains constant.

Does that make sense?


-TM

It does allow you to set/define borders
It allows music, but i'm not sure what teh Ken Burns reference is
It does allow users to manually progress through the show if you enable navigation (again, it's configurable)

If my website were up right now, i would be able to show examples... but somethings up with my host!




Woo hoo! I'm backup.

http://www.johnmarkphotography.com/ -- this is ssp w/o navigation enabled.

http://www.johnmarkphotography.com/slidesh...%20wedding.aspx -- this is ssp w/ navigation enabled

Also, did i mention that it is xml based so you can have one show and just pass in a different xml source to change the show? I use the Director app that they have to set up albums and it's awesome too.

Hi John,

The "Ken Burns Effect" is the ability to pan and zoom still images. Can your software display an image and then pan and zoom that image before switching to the next image?

-TM

I don't think it does panning and zooming. Guess there isn't any perfect slideshow software out there afterall ;-)

The guy who owns it seems to be responsive to feature requests though.