FotoMagico: Slideshows Made Easier

I’ve been editing video for a long time in various forms, and more recently I’ve been employed by several family members and acquaintances to make photo slideshows for events such as weddings and birthday parties. While not a particularly difficult task, it can be frustrating if you don’t have the right tools. Way back when I was on a PC, I used Pinnacle Studio video editing software to do the job because it was cheap and relatively easy to use. Now that I’m on a Mac, I’ve found that iPhoto and iMovie have roughly the same level of customizability: very little. That’s where FotoMagico from Boinx Software comes in.

FotoMagico, unlike iPhoto and iMovie, is designed specifically for the task of creating photo slideshows. It features the same easy-to-use interface and media integration that the current iLife suite does, but it makes the process so much more functional. The first thing you see when you open the app is a dialog asking what format the slideshow is being created for. This is insanely useful, as a slideshow that looks great on your widescreen LCD monitor may not look so good on a standard-definition 4:3 television, or vice-versa. I’ve been bitten by this one too many times myself, and this feature of FotoMagico is excellent.

Once you’ve got your project going, it’s as easy as dragging pictures and music into the timeline. From here, you have full control over length of pictures, transitions, audio looping, and much more. One of the great things I loved about the otherwise-subpar Pinnacle Studio was the full control over pan and zoom, also known as the “Ken Burns effect,” on images. FotoMagico incorporates this same control in a much more usable way.

Much of the real “magic” of FotoMagico comes when you get ready to export your slideshow. Not only can you simply play it on your computer screen on-the-fly, you can create movie files formatted for the web, iPod, DVD, and even full 1080p HD video. If you want to make viewing the slideshow even easier, you can create a self-contained application file that will play the slideshow fullscreen on any Mac, great for the technologically challenged. Another great feature, new in version 2.0 of the software, is the ability to export the slideshow as a standalone screen saver file for OS X.

Boinx offers FotoMagico Express and Pro versions, offering various levels of features. The Express version, at $49, will probably do everything that most home users would need to do. The Pro version costs $129 and includes Aperture support and customized exporting options, as well as making the screen saver and standalone slideshows created by the app without a watermark. If you create photo slideshows on even a semi-regular basis, it’s definitely work checking out.

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