Create a Picture Slideshow with Proshow Gold

Putting your photos together into a slideshow to view on the computer or a DVD is becoming more and more popular. There are many programs out there that create slideshows as well as many services that can create them for you. It is fairly simple to make them yourself and that gives you complete creative control. One of the best programs to create photos slideshows with is Proshow Gold by Photodex. Proshow Gold retails for about $70 at http://www.photodex.com/ .

There are some free programs that can make slideshows such as Windows Movie Maker, but I prefer Proshow Gold for many reasons. It is extremely simple to use, it can set up a DVD menu, and it can pan and zoom in on your photographs which makes the show much more interesting! In this tutorial, I am going to show you a quick and easy way to make a slideshow for your computer using Proshow Gold.

To begin with, open your Proshow Gold program and import some photos into your slideshow. In the upper, left area you will see a window with folders in it. Browse through the folders to find your pictures and then just click on them and drag them down to the timeline at the bottom (see picture: 1).

Proshow gold automatically puts a standard fade transition in between each picture for you. But you can change this to create your own. A transition is how one picture flows into the next. Transitions can be fades, wipes, or anything else. To change the transitions, click on the transition icon in between the pictures and a window will pop up with tons of them to choose from (see picture: 2).

You can also change many things on the pictures themselves such as motion effects, write captions, and adjust the brightness of the picture. Double click on a picture and then choose motion effects from the left side. Here you can pan, zoom, and rotate your picture. To add some words to your picture, click the captions button on the left. You can type in some words and even give motion to them by adjusting the settings. You can play with the different option on the left to create different effects for each picture (see picture: 3).

Or you can simply randomize everything. Right click on a picture and choose randomize motion effect, slide order, or transitions to have Proshow Gold do the work for you (see picture: 4). Once you have completed your video you will want to save it to your computer. Choose the video icon at the top to save this file to your computer. A window with different options will pop up (see picture: 5). You can use the automatic suggestions that Proshow Gold gives you or you can change the quality of the settings to whatever you like. Once you have saved it, then your video is complete to watch on your computer. You can see a sample of a completed slideshow here, http://www.forevertreasure.net/video/video2.htm .

If you have a DVD burner installed in your computer you can even put your slideshow onto a DVD as well as create menus for it. As you can see, creating slideshows with Proshow Gold is very simple and looks very professional. It is a great way to create memories. Slideshow DVDs make wonderful present for friends and family.