Tech Tuesdays - Photodex ProShow Gold

Photodex ProShow Gold is one of the fastest, easiest and least expensive ways around to make original video slideshows with your photos. With so many photographers producing video slideshows of their work, this program gives you a chance to customize your video and make it really stand out from the crowd.

When I started searching for a product that I could use to produce videos, it didn't seem like there were many options out there. Sure, there are plenty of programs for editing video, but that's not really what I needed. To make a photo slideshow, I don't need a video editor like Final Cut Pro. I need something that's simpler, easier to use and definitely cheaper!

There are services popping up that are geared specifically towards photographers such as Animoto. These are great, as you choose a song, choose a style, upload your photos and let Animoto do the rest. My main issue with Animoto videos is that, well, they all tend to look the same. I think it's a great service and anyone who hasn't seen an Animoto video before is sure to be impressed, but when I see a video portfolio with a bunch of Animoto videos in it, I pretty much know exactly what to expect from each video.

I'm not trying to bash Animoto, just give the reasons why I didn't want to go with it to produce my videos. So, why did I choose ProShow Gold? There are a few reasons. It's a program that you purchase, not a subscription service, which means that once it's paid for, I can produce videos for the next 20 years without spending any more money. It's really easy to learn and use, which is important when you don't have a lot of free time. I also have full control over the videos I produce with the ability to make them as plain or creative as I want.

With that being said, if I make a boring video, that's entirely my fault as well. Fortunately, ProShow Gold comes with a number of templates that animate individual slides or entire slideshows. It's also easy to make various movements (pans, scrolls and rotations) on individual slides. It also comes with a variety of slide transitions. It's able to incorporate video along with photos, and adding a soundtrack is as easy as dragging and dropping an mp3 file.

There's another, more expensive version of ProShow called Producer. It comes with more slide animations and show options. It also is geared more towards commercial use. I didn't think that I needed everything it had to offer and was happy to hear that most of the animations are available for purchase without upgrading. If you do choose to upgrade and you already own ProShow Gold, you receive a discount on Producer. So far I haven't felt the need, but it's nice to know the option is available.

I'm very happy with ProShow Gold. I haven't made as many videos as I'd like to make, but then again I haven't had much free time. Maybe if I had Animoto and could just upload photos and let them do the rest I would make videos more often. If you think that might be the case with you, Animoto might be worth a look. For now, I'll just keep taking photos and then when things slow down a bit I'll get to dive in and go video crazy!

I just made the video at the top of this post this morning. I timed it to see how long it actually takes to make a quick video. I had the images and music picked out before I started. From opening the program to exporting the video to my hard drive, it took about 22 minutes to make this video. Of course, I could have spent more time playing with slide effects, modifying the slide motion and even synching the transitions to the music, but that would have taken a bit longer. I also could have just dragged the photos to the timeline, stuck with the default transitions and had no slide motion and been done in 5 minutes. As it is, I think I found a nice middle-of-the-road solution that gave a nice video that isn't too over the top but isn't too boring either. What do you think?