Slideshow Studio HD from Ashampoo

Many would argue that creating a slideshow is not that big a deal. But Ashampoo’s new Slideshow Studio HD 2 not only lets you glue images together in a movie complete with a soundtrack, it also lets you insert all sorts of effects when transitioning from one picture to the next.

Image viewers these days also bring the slideshow option in order to make watching the images more comfortable. You just set the duration each element should be displayed and sit back and enjoy the show.

Ashampoo Slideshow Studio HD 2 is a bit more complicated than this, especially since it has been built with the specific purpose to help you build professional looking slideshows. So the set of features should be a rich one.

The price is $19.99, but you can try it at its full capacity before spending the cash for at least 10 days. If this trial period is not enough you can extend it with another 30 if you register for a free Ashampoo account.

Just like it happens with all Ashampoo products, the only thing you have to pay attention to during installation is the screen pushing Ashampoo toolbar into your web browsers. Once you get passed this screen everything completes with no problems.

Aesthetics is important for some users and in this case they’ll benefit from a good looking interface which manages to combine ease of use and a comfortable placement of the editing and preview panels.

Building a slideshow is as easy as dropping the desired images straight into the interface. The transition effects are added automatically and inserted randomly between the pictures. The result is ready to be previewed and, if you’re satisfied, burned to disc or saved as a video.

However, this is nothing but a rough version of the slideshow which can be customized with a soundtrack or personalized with logos. More than this, you can add subtitles to offer more information on the displayed image.

All the items added to the slideshow are shown in the timeline in the lower part of the interface. This is where you can also edit them to fit your needs. The picture thumbs can be stretched to more screen time and so can be the transition effects thumbs.

Also, each element in the timeline comes with its own context menu which mainly lets you edit it (not available for slides), add a new one or delete it.

For those with a rich imagination or simply want to customize the project, Slideshow Studio HD 2 from Ashampoo puts at your disposal the possibility to add text (regular or circular), overlay images (PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF or TIF) or add different shapes (square, star, circle, triangle, trapezium – all customizable in terms of solid color or gradient hues and transparency). There are also some preset themes, logos and subtitles you can use if they fit your needs. These are worth having a look at, but there is nothing special about them.

On the other hand, KenBurns effect makes the program extremely attractive. These are pan-and-scan effects that shift attention from one part of the image to another, giving the impression that you’re watching a movie.

The app brings templates that range from zooming in and out to diagonal/horizontal/vertical pans, but you are free to create your own preset by adjusting the start and end frames. A preview window shows the result of your set up. It is an easy trick that adds great effect to the entire show.

Editing the random transition effects inserted automatically by the application between the slides is a simple job. However, your choices are limited to the 19 effects for which you benefit from a preview as soon as you make your selection.

As far as music is concerned, Slideshow Studio HD 2 supports a wide range of formats. We tested it with MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC and APE, but the list also includes AMR, DTS, AAC, MPC, MP2, MIDI and M4A. Just like for anything else, you get to preview the audio track before adding it to the slideshow.

In most cases the soundtrack will be cut at the end of the slideshow. With Slideshow Studio HD you can synchronize the video duration with the duration of the audio. This can be achieved either manually by modifying the screen times for the elements in the timeline (which can be quite a tedious job), or automatically.

The latter option is appealing and works great. All you have to do is drag by a slider in order to adjust the display time of the slides and the transitions separating them. Drag it to the right and the slides will be awarded less screen time while transition effects will be displayed longer; drag it to the left and the exact opposite will happen. For a good compromise I would settle somewhere in the middle.

To make it a real show Ashampoo’s new product can add end or beginning credits to your project. And the matter is as serious as can be since the options allow you to create a professional presentation. The options make you choose between displaying them on multiple fading pages or on a single, large one.

Also, you can use a background image of your choice or use the credits as overlay. A brief set of templates is at your disposal if the predefined text layout suits your needs. However, you can also add the text by yourself, as well as other objects like images and shapes.

If the preview of the slideshow is exactly what you were hoping for, you can proceed to producing the actual slideshow to a video file. You can save the resulting file to a location of your choice (AVI, MPG or WMV), burn it directly to a DVD disc or make it compatible with video streaming websites such as YouTube.

Regardless of the path you select, the application does not make available the possibility to adjust the resolution to whatever you need; it will automatically impose 640x480 or 704x528. Higher resolutions mean better quality and with the size of the storage devices nowadays, the weight of the resulting slideshow should not be a problem.

The quality of the output result is strictly related to its size. Slideshow Studio HD 2 lets you control the quality of the resulting file by dragging by a slider (you are also given the size of the resulting video); for the best result I would recommend the MPEG-4 AVI format with at the best quality.

Producing the slideshow (encoding the video) is not done without a noticeable impact on your system’s performance. We witnessed the CPU rise as high as 86% and RAM usage passed the 500MB value (our test system sports a Dual Core 2GHz CPU and 3GB RAM). This means that the application is for relatively powerful computers.

The Good

The Bad

The Truth

This article is also available in Spanish: Crea presentaciones en alta definición con Ashampoo Slideshow Studio HD