I have a Kodak DC50 and Nikon 900 for making SLIDE SHOWS. I am now a MAC guy, but am considering to move to the WINDOWS platform. HOWEVER ..... iView (a MAC program) allows me 1) to enter all my new images in thumbnail sheets -I thrash the undesirable ones, and drag the remaining thumbnails into the optimal order and then I renumber the image files accordingly-, and 2) showing the (with Photoshop 5 enhanced) images in a slide show (3:4 images fill up the whole screen) with the image size adjusted automatically. The time between successive slides can be varied; minimum is about 4 seconds. IS THERE ANY PROGRAM IN THE WINDOWS WORLD THAT CAN DO BOTH 1 AND 2? I tried EasyPhoto, Mr A-Picmaster, Alcyone, but none comes close to iView. Windows bombs, thumbnails can not be dragged, slide show is not sufficiently adjustable --I had hours of misery!! Should I stay with MAC? Is there hope? I'll appreciate

-- Kees DeJong (dejong@one.net), July 11, 1999

Answers

I have an old version of CorelDraw (Version 6) that came with a program called "Corel Presents" I use Photoshop and typically save my files in TIFF format. This program enters these TIFF images, converting them to thumbnails in the process. The thumbnails came up on a screen, and I can drag and drop them in any order I wish. (I can also add text to the thumbnails.) The images can be played back (using any number of types of wipes and dissolves) at any desired rate, coming on full-screen, one after the other.

Since I don't use vector graphics a great deal these days, I have never updated Corel 6 but I did discover that the presentation program is now included (under the name of Corel Presentations) in the Corel WordPerfect Suit. You can check it out further at http://www.corel.com/products/wordperfect/cp7/index.htm.

I like the program very much, but this old version suffered from one defect: it appeared to produce a file that stored not just the thumbnail, but the whole !@!#$#%^ image in the file the program produced! The file, therefore, was humongous (especially since my typical slide program contains 160 slides!) It was useful, however, for editing parts of a slide program where it was necessary to see how a slide sequence would look in practice (I develop and show 2-projector slide programs controlled by a computer-programmable dissolve unit, with music, narration, etc.) Anyway, this might be worth a look on your part to see if it meets your requirements. My old version certainly was easy to use, and the latest version should have additional improvements.

-- Albert J. Klee (aklee@fuse.net), July 11, 1999.

Powerpoint in Office 97 (and later)is very flexible about setting up timed presentations using the various slide show and animation features. I haven't gone as far as it seems you may want to go. My most extensive "show" was a 5 minute show with multiple pages of pictures of Scotland, maps, etc., and music that I pulled from web sources for a school multicultural fair presentation. My transition times were based on the length of music selections and I believe is adjustable to 1 second increments. You can also set to advance on mouse clicks or other cue types. There are many different transition effects, hyper link type buttons, etc. You can also add sound and music effects. It can be set to run as a kiosk presentation which can (potentially) prevent viewer interference. I also have a similar vintage Corel presentations program which seems equally adaptable. I use the Microsoft Office pkg more due to familiarity and at work experience, but, suites other than the Microsoft may be cheaper for you to obtain. (Which is why I have both, I got Corel/Wordperfect cheaper first.) I think you would need to resize a photo yourself in Powerpoint (which could be easier than in a photo program for this use) when creating a page. If they are your originals, you should have plenty of detail to work with for on-screen display. There are screens that allow you to sort/order/edit pages quite easily. FWIW the Microsoft Office Powerpoint presentation files are supposed to be cross platform compatible between Mac and PC but my experience has shown that to be a little rocky. These office suites are kind of pricy but there is a tremendous amount of power in the applications. Just make sure that the suites you consider have a presentation program.

-- Craig Gillette (cgillette@thegrid.net), July 12, 1999.

My prior answer assumes you are intending an on screen display, not controlling slide projectors. Powerpoint (and similar programs) should drive a monitor/computer projection easily enough. I don't know if you can use it to "drive" 35mm slide projectors. And as another answer indicated, the files can be large depending on the size of the "object" on a page and the number of pages. I had trouble creating presentations on a PC and transferring the complete presentations to a Mac via disk. The problems seemed to center on the attachment or linking to different sound/midi files. It seems that some types were linked, some became a part of the presentation file and that some effects file types weren't supported on one or the other platform. Good Luck!

-- Craig Gillette (cgillette@thegrid.net), July 12, 1999.

Sierra Imaging has software called Image Expert that does a nice slide show.

http://www.sierraimaging.com/store/software.html

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), July 12, 1999.

Here is another from ArcSoft called Photo Studio:

http://www.arcsoft.com/prodps20.htm

You can download a free trial version of this software. I use both this software and the Image Expert I mentioned previously. Both of these are nice basic image editors with slide show capability.

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), July 12, 1999.

Consider Gizmos 98 or Kai's PowerShow for your presentation needs in addition...

-- Jeffrey Sevier (jsevier@one.net), July 16, 1999.

Try slides and sounds plus from www.inmediapresents.com. This works on both the Mac and PC platform. A 30 day demo can be downloaded from this site. It is the best program that I have found so far. There are many effects that can be used and the delay between sounds is very adjustable. The transition can be timed as well.

-- Jonathan Ratzlaff (jonathanr@clrtech.bc.ca), July 16, 1999.