PhotoPresenter 3.3 Review and Giveaway

Posted by Ammon Beckstrom on 03/12/08 in Featured, Giveaways, Utilities

Icon Slideshows sure have come a long way. As a kid, I remember whenever my dad hauled out the old Kodak Carousel - it was a guaranteed trip to Snoozeville. From vacation photos to pictures of my 5-year-old’s dance recitals, I’ve become guilty of the same heinous slideshow crimes as my dad. Thanks to PhotoPresenter, however, this doesn’t have to be the case.

PhotoPresenter, from Arizona Software, allows you to easily create dynamic slideshows from your photos, movies, and music. With PhotoPresenter you can browse the contents of your hard drive for media to use in your slideshows. However, where PhotoPresenter really shines is with its built-in iPhoto integration. Choose photos and videos by their Events tag or from those you’ve tucked carefully away in albums, or even from existing iPhoto slideshows.

Screenshot

Once you’ve selected the media you want to include in your slideshow it’s a cinch to add a track or two from your iTunes library. Afterwards, you can export your slideshows to a variety of Apple-centric devices including the iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV. Additionally, you can publish your work as a QuickTime movie or push your finished product to iDVD or iWeb where you can burn it to a disc or share it on the Internet.

It’s hard to believe PhotoPresenter isn’t an iApp, as it looks and feels so complimentary to the other apps in the iLife suite. Apparently, I’m not the only one who appreciates PhotoPresenter’s clean, intiuitive interface. In 2006, PhotoPresenter was the runner up for a prestigious Apple Design Award.

Screenshot

And now for the final verdict… PhotoPresenter is my favorite way to quickly create high-quality slideshows. True, you can do slideshows in iPhoto, but PhotoPresenter’s no-frills approach to slideshows makes it a joy to use. PhotoPresenter also sports more than twice the number of eye-popping transitions as iPhoto.

If you’re already familiar with iPhoto, then moving to PhotoPresenter will be painless and rewarding. In no time at all you’ll be whipping up stellar multimedia creations. If you don’t win a copy (keep reading for contest instructions below), I still recommend you go out and buy a license. For the ridiculously low price of $8, PhotoPresenter is pound for pound one of the best software values available on the Mac. Get your copy today from the PhotoPresenter download page.

But for the lucky few, it’s freebie time! Simon at Arizona Software has kindly given us 3 licenses to giveaway so that our readers can feel the PhotoPresenter love. To be entered to win a license simply download a trial of PhotoPresenter then leave a comment below to let us know what you think would make PhotoPresenter better.

The contest ends March 19th at midnight EST and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. So leave your comments now and get entered to win this fantastic app!

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22 Comment(s)

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something2sea said on

March 12th, 2008 at 6:21 am

It would be really nice to have the capability to play more than one song without having to select an entire playlist (most apps have this short-coming). iMovie 08 doesn’t though… and the way that works is very nice, something like that… or in the “select your music” screen, check-boxes so you can check more than one song, and it plays it in the order you select.

That would finish it off nicely!

Anthony said on

March 12th, 2008 at 9:26 am

I would like it if there were a droplet. Select a number of pics, drop them on the droplet or application icon, and a generic slideshow starts immediately.

Ian Weir said on

March 12th, 2008 at 9:30 am

Love It. Now if we can see this in a web app it would make looking at photography site more enjoyable.

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Priscilla said on

March 12th, 2008 at 10:26 am

As a recent switcher, I didn’t actually know that iPhoto could make slideshows until I read this article. I downloaded PhotoPresenter and tried making slideshows on both programs, and I must say they seem to do almost the exact same thing. Other than extra transitions, has PhotoPresenter got any other extra features that iPhoto doesn’t have? I noticed that it can create screensavers from the slideshows, while iPhoto will only do that with events, but I don’t really see the point in buying an extra app when iPhoto already does much the same thing.

As for improvements, neither iPhoto nor PhotoPresenter have the option to randomly play songs in a playlist. This means that if you have multiple slideshows using the same playlist, they will always play the same songs, in the same order; and if there aren’t many photos in the playlists, they will play only the first song all the time.

Priscilla said on

March 12th, 2008 at 10:34 am

I just realized that PhotoPresenter only makes slideshows from iPhoto events anyway, so their screensaver abilities are actually the same.
Another improvement PhotoPresenter (and iPhoto) could make is the ability to make slideshows from photos from various events, not just one.
Also, I haven’t figured out how to save a slideshow in PhotoPresenter - is it not possible?

BobMac said on

March 12th, 2008 at 10:35 am

I haven’t had the chance to play around with it yet, but I do hope it has the ability to output 720P.

Hernan J. said on

March 12th, 2008 at 11:03 am

This app looks really good.

Mike A said on

March 12th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

this is a good app. I wish I could find this type of app that incorporated the ability to narrate each picture and maybe even play background music.

luchid said on

March 12th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

I second the “docklet” function. It would be awesome to be able to just drag a few pictures from any folder or drive to an icon in the dock and have a dialog pop up to select a few (emphasis on few) options -like default/random transition effect, speed and loop- and done. It would be a nice feature to have when you’ve just returned from a vacation or trip and everyone’s eager to watch the photos you’ve just taken without the hassle of importing them into iPhoto first.

I would also improve the app’s functionality when your Mac is using a low-res (standard-def TV) as a second display (like maybe auto-resize to fit, not having to use the displays in “mirror” mode).

Last but not least, some performance improvements for those of us still on G4 Macs would be welcome.

Overall I think it’s a great app that does its thing beautifully.

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Joe Turner said on

March 12th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

You know what. One thing that I want changed about this app is… nothing..

kenneth said on

March 12th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

Only thing I would do to improve this is add better sound / music support.

Kenneth

-1

David Grossman said on

March 12th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

I like this program alot… especially how if I choose Random transitions I can select which transitions to be included.
My only “complaint” is that it seems to run slowly (at least on my intel mac mini). However, iPhoto’s screen shows run fine, so I don’t necessarily think it’s my hardware.

rmaspero said on

March 13th, 2008 at 3:18 am

I would change it so you can use any image by dragging it in and that would be it.

Richard said on

March 13th, 2008 at 3:50 am

A nice addition would be a system-wide plugin to start slideshows using PhotoPresenter from Finder without first going through PhotoPresenter.

Dan said on

March 13th, 2008 at 4:35 am

Runs really smooth on my mb pro. I don’t have much of an iPhoto library so this is perfect for me.

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David said on

March 13th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

I’m the person who noted that it ran slowly on my mac mini. I’ve also tried it on my MB Pro and it runs great!

I second Richard’s comment about a plug-in that would allow slideshows to run directly from Finder.

Chriswan said on

March 14th, 2008 at 3:32 am

more transition effects would be great

Ammon Beckstrom said on

March 14th, 2008 at 10:47 am

What kind of additional transition effects would you like to see?

subgirl said on

March 14th, 2008 at 9:29 pm

Easy to make slide shows, from iPhoto, folders or a disk. Movies at present can only be shortened from the end, they need to able to shorten from either end or both ends.

Chriswan Winata said on

March 15th, 2008 at 1:12 am

@Ammon

It’s very hard to explain in English, since I’m not a native speaker, I’ll just embarrasse myself

the author could browse other popular photo slideshow like app to get inspiration

Henry said on

March 16th, 2008 at 3:53 am

The slide effects are great. One feature I would like to see added would be the option of creating a custom slide (similar to Keynote) that I can include as closing credits. Hopefully with basic text formating functions with hyperlink creation capabilities.

Additional export options to Facebook or YouTube would be excellent.

Louis said on

March 19th, 2008 at 4:22 am

I’d like the ability to add text or titles to the photos, not only at the beginning, but anywhere along the slideshow.

d577428c014b said on

May 11th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

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