Photodex ProShow Producer

A top choice for producing potent presentations and super slide shows

by Bob Singer, MNEC

With the addition of new tools and functions, Photodex has expanded the capabilities of its well-regarded ProShow Gold presentation package for photo enthusiasts to create ProShow Producer, a high-end professional program for generating content-protected slide and multimedia shows using photos, video, music and special effects.

Intuitive features speed slide show production

The more powerful ProShow Producer adds unique features that professionals and high-end photo enthusiasts will welcome: faster encoding, RAW file support, customized DVD menus, slide layering that permits multiple images and videos to be added to the same slide for motion and special effects, custom show templates to speed future projects, color profile awareness, watermarking, a caption interactivity function that lets you use text as a link to other slides or to websites, and manual show control for live presentations.

ProShow Producer lets you make DVDs, auto run CDs, VCDs, self-contained executables, on-line shows and screensavers, all branded with your own business name instead of the software vendor’s. Nice! Did I mention that you can create MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and AVI files? Publish streaming shows to your website? You can also burn multiple copies of disks that will play on both a TV and a computer.

The ProShow Producer tool bar gives you quick access to the program’s functions

Calling ProShow Producer quick and easy to use is an understatement. Producing a professional quality show has never been simpler. Simply drag and drop your photos, video clips and music into the filmstrip along the bottom of your screen. The program recognizes over a hundred different file types including RAW files, saving big chunks of image conversion and show prep time; that is no small accomplishment! And images can be exchanged and rearranged instantly in the filmstrip area. You’re working in real-time with unlimited undo and redo. And you’re protected with automatic show backup and recovery.

Clicking on the transition icon just above the timing box between images brings up a very sizeable selection of different transitions.

Your image display and transition time can be independently set. Clicking on the image display time in the lower right hand corner of each thumbnail image in the filmstrip lets you set or change the actual display time to whatever length you’d like, even in tenths of a second. The time icon found between images and under the transitions icon on the filmstrip lets you do the same thing with transition times. The same is true with your narration or music soundtrack. You can set, raise, fade and later change your volume, do voiceovers, insert sound effects on individual slides, even automatically time your slides and music. That’s the kind of fine control that hallmarks professional work.

In addition to stills, you can use video clips, animations, pan-and-zoom motion effects or angled images. ProShow Producer will handle them all. The really nice part is that you don’t have to read the very thorough 500 page manual before you use the program; the program is that intuitive. Think of the manual as a great quick reference when you’re ready to dig down more deeply into the many options that this application gives you.

For a real-world tryout, I’d been putting off packaging a travel presentation about Bermuda with about two hundred images that I’d shot digitally a year ago. It seemed well tailored as a good slide show test project, so I set a night aside. It didn’t take that long. ProShow Producer let me complete the job effortlessly, intuitively, flawlessly, and fast! Without a stopwatch, but also without reservations, I’ll give ProShow Producer my current “best of breed” rating for slide show/presentation applications.

Speaking of giving, ProShow Producer would make a wonderful holiday gift for that special photo pro or high-end enthusiast in your life: you. Don’t think for a minute that you can do everything with another program that you can do with ProShow Producer. You can’t. So, print out this review and leave it where your significant other can easily find it. Together with Photodex’s on-line store URL.

Dongle-dependent

For all that’s great about ProShow Producer, be aware before you buy it that a dongle – or USB key --must be plugged into your computer’s USB port to activate and run the program in registered mode. If you wish to move the ProShow Producer application from one computer to another, you can do so as long as you have your dongle. But, should you lose it, you’ll need to buy another full ProShow Producer package . Photodex clearly spells out that, “if this key is lost, you must purchase the software again.” I appreciated that bright pink warning slip packed inside the box with the dongle, but would prefer to see a notice on the outside of the box that an enclosed dongle is required to run the program. That said, I think this product is well worth every penny of its price.

Pricing and availability

Photodex ProShow Producer is available as a fully functional trial download or may be purchased directly from www.photodex.com for $499.95. Purchase includes one year of free upgrades.

Minimum system requirements

Pentium II CPU, 256MB RAM, accelerated graphics card, USB port (for the dongle)

Windows XP or 2000

55MB of hard drive space for program, additional space for show data

Direct X 8 or higher

Recommended system requirements

Pentium 4 CPU, 512MB RAM, accelerated AGP graphics card,

Windows XP or 2000

DVD+/- R drive

55MB of hard drive space for program, additional space for show data

Direct X 9 or higher