Thanks all for the help!
I did check out other programs that you all mentioned except for photomagico. Sorry, I had made a decision by then.
I thought I'd just jot some thoughts down on the software that I spent a week with just to aid others who do a search on this topic.
First off, it's pretty easy finding software that allows for Ken Burns movement and manual transitions. Somewhere along the line, the light bulb went off and I thought of the "Pause" key on the keyboard.... If you end up running a show using Windows Media Player or the like, you can use the "Play/Pause" button. It's one of those infrequently used buttons along the top of your keyboard. Dave had mentioned that with ProShow Gold you can use the mouse. Yes, but it requires right clicking and a shortcut menu pops up on the screen. Kind of annoying if you are going to pause frequently during the presentation.
Here's some quick thoughts on the software that I looked at, in no particular order. What is wonderful is that almost all the manufacturers allow you to download a trial version. So, take a look at this list or elsewhere and see what strikes you, download it and see if it's going to work.... Sorry if I speak against software that you like. I was just looking for the above features and the ability to run the slide show manually, provide a live narrative and not just pop a DVD or CD in to a player and let it do its thing...
First, a bit of orientation to the words I used to describe the products:
Slide = image = digital image file
Screen: The screen the image is projected on during a show. Not computer screen.
Show = Presentation of the organized digital images.
Transition: What happens between images up on the screen (e.g. no transition, one fades out, the next one fades in...)
Effects = Movements= panning/zooming = Ken Burns effects: Panning and zooming and rotating that happens while the image is up on the projection screen.
The software:
Irfanview. v3.99 Free. No transition effects. Allows for manual advancement. No Ken Burns effects. Can save show as an .exe
DVD Photo Slide show v 7.55 $60. Kinda expensive for what you get. No Ken Burns movements. No manual advancing. It was too simple for my needs. Seems to be geared for non-photographers. I didn't spend much time with it.
Ulead Picture Show 4. $20. Same, as DVD Slide show in that it's geared for non-photographers and has basic 1,2, 3 steps and you're done. Does have pan and zoom. Has a bit of a Knowledge Base on their website that may be useful for making it do more. Didn't spend much time with it since it seems to write to CD and DVD's only. Not keen on software that dumps a company "cookie" in my system tray.
Wondershare DVD Slide Show Builder.ver.2 $50 Can save as avi, mpegs and wmv. Allows Ken Burns movements and images can move along curved lines while they are up on the screen. Can't control the amount of time that an image pans/zooms. Movements begins when image is on screen and ends when the slide disappears from the screen. The slide show and motion preview really sucks and it's small. Doesn't allow for manual advancement of images during a presentation. I found the slide show to have harsh transitions. Again, seemed geared for the masses so I didn't spend much time with it.
Wnsoft Pictures to Exe v4.48 $24. Creates stand alone .exe file or an avi file. No panning and zooming. Oops, I just noticed that v5.00 is out that allows for this. It seemed a little too simplistic for me.
OK, here's the ones I really spent some time with:
Microsoft Powerpoint: If you have Office then you probably already have this. Using the built-in light table works and it's easy to create a slideshow and create motions. Disadvantages are that the files it creates are huge and the resulting motions in during the presentation are not smooth.
MySlideShow Gold by www.anix.com $34 v2.7.3 Great interface! Allows for a full screen display of the show. Pan and zoom functions only work when images are output to video. And, no transitions when slides are manually advanced. A standalone .exe file can't be created. I found the motions in the video weren't that smooth. Did run into a couple of glitches where the software burped. FYI, the "Settings..." button to the right of the image controls the settings for the whole show and not just that slide...
Smoothshow Pro. $50-70. I've been using this one for a couple of years. Recommended by Tim Grey. Offers manual advance that works with transitions. Also has pan and zoom, but harder to control than other software packages. Can create a stand alone .exe file. This is a very good thing because the player is built into this file. One doesn't have to worry about needing a media player to go along with the show. By click on the .exe file, the show runs at full screen. Unlike other software that offers this feature, this program makes copies of all the images in a folder you specify. The whole folder containing the .exe file and copied images are needed for the presentation. The images are renamed to image1, image2, image3, etc. I found the effects a little rough when the show ran they were jumpy and not smooth. The software also has a couple of glitches that I'd like to see gone: One is when moving slides around on the slide sorter. When the mouse bumps into the top/bottom of the screen, it's hard to get the software to scroll up/down to get to the rest of the light table. If you have ever used Excel, you know what I mean: No control ovedr scrolling. Another is when a slide is inserted in the slide show twice, a copy of that image is created in the folder where that image resides in your computer. And, it may be me, but I can't find a use for the Slide titles that takes up room on the left hand side of the screen. It can be set to see the image names but it's left justified so I can only see the directory structure (i.e. C:/photos/process/....) is visible without manually scrolling all the time. Or, it lists the image names as: Image 1, image 2, etc. Neither are particularly useful. Lastly, when using the Slide Sorter, scrolling using the mouse wheel doesn't work as it should. What scrolls is the info in the Slide Title window. So, one has to resort to using the scroll bars all the time. Can't remember what version I had but I downloaded an upgrade recently and found that it is the same version I bought a couple of years ago. The website was last updated in 2005. So, don't know if it's actively being re-written.
Adobe Lightroom. Beta 4.1 (Free but soon to be $200). OK, I'm sure it's me because everyone is raving about this software but I couldn't arrange images easily. There is only one type of transition: Fade. Works for me but you may want to have a few others. No Ken Burns effects.
Microsoft PhotoStory 3. Free. It's a good deal if you want simple shows with panning and zooming. Unfortunately, it puts them in automatically for you so you have to click on each slide individually to change them. There's no way to eliminate or change them globally. While I want to have full control over the effects, it's pretty cool how and where it puts the effects in. I replicated some when I created my own show. It also allows slides to rotate while it is on the screen. Easy to move slides around to organize the show. Creates wmv files. No ability to manually advance the show. No way to set transition between slides globally. Have to click on each image separately. Interface isn't that great: Can't maximize the window so you're squinting at a small window in the middle of your monitor. Limited settings and pretty basic but it's free... Can create wmv files. Did I say that already?
LQGraphics. Photo to Movie v3.5 $50 Comes recommended by a number of folks who have posted here and on Luminous Landscape. Allows for pans that follow curved (Bezier) lines. This means that images, while up on the screen and move about in arcs and not just pan from point A to point B as the slide show progresses. Can also have the image speed up and slow down while on the screen. Can create avi's and wmv's. Can't manually control advancement of images during the presentation. Has very good control over motions and transitions from one image to the next. Can also rotate slides (in addition to zooming). Downsides are: This program took the longest time to load up every time I used it. Doesn't allow for fading of image while image is up on the screen. Similarly, doesn't allow for color change of image (e.g. start at B/W and become colored as image is on the screen.) Considering the price versus the downsides, I can see why a lot of folks like this software...
Edward mentioned Adobe Encore DVD 2.0 $350. I looked at this software but it seemed that its really geared for creating DVD's and creating slide shows seems to be but just a small part of the software. Interface was comfortable as it operates similarly to Photoshop.
Adobe Premier Elements. v3.0 $90 at Amazon.com. Dave Dube wrote that he uses this one. It does have the comfortable PS interface. It had tons of control over the timing of Ken Burns effects and transitions. Very easy to control acceleration/deceleration of effects (Usually you want to have panning and zooming begin slowly and then pick up speed, like a car starting out. Rather than just going from 0 to 60mph in a split second.) Panning movements can follow Bezier (curved) lines. Obviously, it can rotate slides in addition to changing saturation, hue, brightness, fading, etc. of an image while it's on the screen. The concerns I had was that it took a long time to render the shows and the file size was rather large. The program is also pretty sequency in that, one needs to decide the order of slides prior to inserting them into the the window that holds the slides chronologically as it's tough to move them around afterwards. Had a similar issue with transitions and setting the timing of how long the slides are on the screen. If you forget to set this before inserting the slides into this windwo, you have to change each image manually. I also found the transitions and motions to be rough and not smooth when viewing the slide show afterwards. I should add that I tried 10 different programs that run wmv files and found them to all do this (PS, I'm running a reasonably fast computer and video card). This software also has a slow start up time. Disliked how pressing the play button would show the whole slide show and not just the current image that I was adding effects to ... Most other packages just showed the effect, stopped and then allowed you to refine it.
ProShow Gold by Photodex. 3.0 $70. Lot of folks on PN like this software based on my searches of previous posts. Has a great interface. Does have the Ken Burns effects but panning is along straight lines and not curved ones. Easy to move slides around within the show. Can rotate images while on screen.
Creates the .exe quickly. This .exe file is all you need to cart around to make the presentation. The images are incorporated into the .exe file. It runs full screen. Can match the next slide to come up on the screen in the same place where the current one ends. A lot of right clicking menus built in to speed up the designing of the show. Can create layered slides, meaning that one can have a slide with multiple images (Think collage). Each image on the slide can have its own effects. I'm would imagine that the Adobe products do this, too. I found this software to create smooth shows so long as the panning path isn't long or the zooming isn't too extreme. Disadvantages: Can't control when the Ken Burns effects begin and end. They start/stop when the slide comes up on the screen. Similar to others posters, I hit computer glitches and did have the software lock up twice.
Photodex. ProShow Producer 3.0 $250. Identical to ProShow Gold but with more features: Can create Bezier lines that panning images can follow. Images can fade in/out while on screen. Can adjust brightness, contrast, color of images while on screen. Sharpening an image is also an option but I couldn't get this one to work. One may have to import an unsharpened image into the slide show for this to work. Allows for manual advancement of slides during a presentation. This was the only software I found that offered this. But, it's not smooth with some transition effects (e.g. fade out). When creating the show, one can select the option of setting the color space to sRGB. This doesn't change the original images and can save the step of using Irfanview, etc. to make copies and conversions of your images to create a new set with sRGB color space. Similar to Premier Elements and Photo to Movie, one can have the panning/zooming speed up/slow down while the image is up on the screen. Transitions and effects are jumpy in preview but smooth when running the .exe file.
Ian mentioned the Stumpfl Platinum software. I went looking and I knew it was going to be expensive when I couldn't find a price for it easily. Didn't demo it but did determine that it was going to be around 600 euros for the modules that I needed. That's as far as I went...
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There are tons of other software packages out there.. I just ran out time and energy to look at others...
Please make comments to make this to make it a worthwhile thread as you do your search for software. Please note any errors that I have made in my commentary. I certainly haven't listed all of the features of each of the software packages either. I only spoke to those that were of the most concern to me. I didn't investigate how easy it is to incorporate and edit sound either....
If you are just starting your search for digital slideshow software, take a look at the Photodex site for shows that actuallyrun. It serves as an example of the type of shows that can be created with the better software packages. This isn't to plug their software but it's the only site I came across that offered this. All the others only show still images and screen captures...
What software did I end up with? For me, I wanted the manual control during the slide show and control over Ken Burns effects. During the review, I fell for the ability to fade an image out while on the screen and to colorize it (Go from B/W to a color image). I opted for ProShow Producer. I use the pause button for stopping the show tho, and don't use the pause feature built into the software. I found this package was the most intuitive and easiest to get it to do what I wanted.
Cheers,
