PhotoShow

Everyone is taking pictures nowadays and for a large variety of purposes. Be them for ads, portraits or landscapes, these are used to express feelings, enhance presentations or simply keep a memory of places you visit. A neat way to organize them is with the help of PhotoShow, which, as the name suggests, lets you gather up your collection of pictures, edit them and generate stunning slideshows.

The application manages to make a good impression right from the start and you quickly find that it only gets better as you snoop through its rich set of features. You are asked for a pictures folder so images are automatically imported, thus saving you a great deal of effort and time.

Features are built on a tabbed frame which lets you access each major category like start, manage, make and share at any given moment for more tweaks. Generally, the process is guided but doesn't force any decision upon you. In other words, a cleverly placed option lets you finish all the work with the so-called “One Click Styles”, but still letting you manually handle what and how to edit.

Your pictures are automatically gathered and sorted according to several criteria. These can be viewed and handled through a side panel made out of several categories. Selecting one reveals its content as thumbnails for which you can view more info or select for the project.

We have to admit that we were impressed with the depth and amount of customization options at your disposal. Besides the staggering amount of presets you find in categories like multi-purpose, themes, events, holidays, music videos and classifieds, the application gives you full control over sets of tools you normally find in advanced image editors.

Arriving at the “Manage” section is where you get to play with these tools. All photos you prepare can be selected from a list, with the rest of the space being cleverly fitted with a large preview area and side panel that holds all configurations. Depending on the tab you choose, dedicated options become available so you can edit, touch up, add text and clip arts, as well as set up playback options.

The result is unique if you choose to use this type of assembly. An abundance of filters, auto fix options, drawing tools, clip arts and even the possibility to add background music are amongst the ones worth mentioning, all of them being customizable. Hitting the “Watch” button prepares your project and fills up your screen with the presentation.

Even if you're unsure about the look and feel of the result while editing, the application builds it up in a way that even the least effort put into design is visually rewarding. Even export options give a little food for thought.

Your project can be saved locally, under several formats such as WMV or AVI videos, EXE file you can run without any other requirements, HTML web page to integrate in larger projects, create dynamic wallpapers or screen savers. These are not all, with other options letting you attach the presentation to an email or upload it to you PhotoShow, Snapfish or Shutterfly account.

Bottom line is that there's hardly any obstacle, both visually and technically, that we came across while taking PhotoShow for a spin. Starting with the polished and intuitive interface, going on with the abundance of editing options and arriving at the variety of export options, it's sure to come in handy for nearly all domains of activities. The only way to be convinced is giving it a try.