Photodex recently updated its ProShow Gold 3.5 slideshow software, which now features Blu-ray disk burning and a free Lightroom plug-in. But that’s only a small part of why ProShow Gold is, perhaps, one of the best slideshow creation applications on the market. Granted, it’s Windows-only, with no imminent plans to release a Mac version, but it offers sophisticated features, is easy to use and, at $69.95 is a bargain considering its powerful feature set.

The first time I tried ProShow Gold, it took me about 20 minutes to create a slideshow, with title slides, captions, transitions, layers, Ken Burns pan/zoom effects, and synchronized audio with fades. The slideshow wasn’t terribly inspired but this initial hands-on, no user-guide experience allowed me to see how intuitive the program can be – at least for most features. The application comes with a printed manual and Photodex also has a great tutorial section on its website if you’d rather do a little research before getting started. If you need to create a slide show of your photos very quickly for a client or a lecture, Pro Show Gold is about as intuitive as it gets.

Intuitive, however, is not synonymous with simplistic. ProShow Gold 3.5 is loaded with options. (The biggest difference between ProShow Gold and higher end sibling, ProShow Producer, is that Producer can handle RAW files while Gold cannot. Producer is also quite a bit more expensive at $250.)

Dragging and dropping images from a list of folders within ProShow Gold's user interface doesn’t take much effort; neither does re-ordering them in the filmstrip (a timeline is also available for fine-tuning). Just click the icon between slides to access a huge selection of transitions, with a mini live thumbnail showing you what it will look like.

Double-click on an image and a Slide Options window opens with six icons identifying the tasks you can accomplish within the window. Editing offers some basics such as rotate, crop, flip and red-eye correction, with live updates for brightness, white point, black point, contrast, hue and sharpen (there’s an Auto image adjustment that should be left alone).

You can also incorporate video, add layers of images, backgrounds, sounds, captions and motion. Motion refers to the Ken Burns effect of panning and zooming. Essentially, all you have to do is pick a starting position and an ending position for the effects, select an acceleration style for the movement (i.e., linear, smooth, accelerate, decelerate) and ProShow Gold takes care of the rest.

Adding an audio track, copyright issues aside, is fairly effortless. The easiest method is to import a sound track from a CD and have it automatically synch the slideshow to the music. If your slideshow is longer than a single song or you want some variety, you can easily add several pieces and tweak the track, with fades and volume, to match the desired rhythm of the show.

Burning to Blu-ray
The latest feature, released in ProShow Gold 3.5 (and for ProShow Producer) is the ability to burn your slideshow to a high definition Blu-ray disc. Since I don’t have a Blu-ray drive on my PC, I hooked up the new Delkin 4x Blu-ray drive. The biggest hassle there was installing Nero 8 Essentials, which is bundled with the drive.

I’m not sure if I really needed to install the software since it appears that ProShow Gold has its own but in order to play back you slide show from the Blu-ray disk, you need the Nero software and a $30 plug-in. Kind of a pain. So, if you plan to burn your slideshow to Blu-ray, it’s easier if you have a compatible player you can just pop the disc into.

All hassles aside, I have to say I really liked the Delkin Blu-ray burner. It’s plug-and-play simple to set up, sturdily built, and comes with a really nice carrying case. My unit came with a 25GB Delkin Archival Gold BD-R. It would be great if it had FireWire but the USB 2.0 connection worked well and the drive is quite fast.

Burning a Blu-ray disk on the Delkin drive was a breeze and so simple that I wondered if I was missing something. You do have some control over attributes like frame rate, quality, desaturation, etc. which may complicate things a bit but the burn went smoothly and quickly. Photodex has a list of drives that have been tested, so you might want to check to see if your burner is on there.

There are tons of other output options as well, including video for mobile devices, executable e-mail files, screensavers, YouTube, Flash and a number of other choices. I didn’t try them all but ProShow Gold seems to make outputting a show as painless as possible.

Lightroom Plug-In
Photodex also recently released a free Lightroom plug-in. You’ll need Lightroom 2.x and ProShow Gold (or ProShow Producer). Basically, all you have to do is create a slideshow in Lightroom and if you want to add different transitions, borders, motion, etc., you can export the show to ProShow. You’ll be able to add copyrights and captions from metadata as well. Useful? For some people it will be. Frankly, I’d rather start from scratch in ProShow Gold…but the plug-in is handy to have.

I’ve been using ProShow Gold for more than a year (before it was updated to 3.5) and can’t bring myself to use any other Windows program to create a slideshow. Not because I’m comfortable using it, which I am, but because I haven’t found another program that has nearly the same flexibility, sophistication and ease of use (and low price).

The Bottom Line
This easy to use slideshow program is deceptively sophisticated, with its multiple creative options and a new Blu-ray burning option. Create one slideshow with ProShow Gold and we guarantee that you’ll be back for more. It’s that addictive.

Pros: Broad range of creative options; relatively easy to use; multiple output options including Blu-ray; affordable

Cons: PC-only; some deeper features may not be intuitive; not compatible with RAW files like its more expensive sibling ProShow Producer


ProShow Gold 3.5 price: $69.95 

Further information: www.Photodex.com

Delkin 4X Blu-ray Drive price: $549.99

Further information: www.delkin.com