7 features your slideshow maker should have

Slideshow is a series of still images delivered one after another. Slide shows in their original meaning were the series of slides shown using slide projectors. But in recent years slideshow is mainly associated with computers. Slideshows have become the important part of web design. It's not surprising because slideshow is a great way to turn common digital images into an eye-catching "movie". Nevertheless, slideshow can be not only eye candy. It can be a marketing tool, an educational method, a way to attract attention to one's blog or social network profile. And, of course, it remains one of the most popular ways to save memory about the brightest moments of life.

The main things you need to create your slideshow are a great idea, a batch of digital photos, sound track (either music or voice record) and a good slideshow creation software. Regardless of what your slideshow is designed for, your slideshow maker should have the following features:

· Slide transitions. This feature may be unnecessary for an educational slideshow, but if you create a slideshow for your blog or profile, slideshow of your child's birthday party or honeymoon - transition effects will be of great use. They make slideshow more vivid, add personality and dynamism to your "photo story".

· Text. Text comments, titles or even date the picture taken on give more details to a slideshow, especially if it has no voice comments. Maybe your wedding slideshow doesn't need titles on each slide, but it's difficult to imagine promotional or educational slideshows without a text.

· Hyperlinks. This feature is indispensable for creating promotional slideshows. For example, you create a slideshow of your company's products. It's great if you're able to assign hyperlinks which will redirect users to the products' web pages. As you see, it's better if your slideshow creator allows to assign not only a total URL to the whole slideshow, but also to assign different URLs to each slide.

· Navigation buttons. Great feature which can be of use for every slideshow type. It gives your audience more control for better perception of your slideshow content and for its convenience.

· Sound. Adding background sound is an important feature regardless of slideshow's aim. Event slideshows can't be perfect without a corresponding music, educational slideshows and business presentations are mainly accompanied with sound (e.g. voice comments).

· Timing control. Timing control means that your slideshow creation software allows you to control how long each slide displays. It's really necessary when you add a background sound with voice comments or narration. In this case timing control helps you to synchronize pictures with comments. Even if slideshow has no background sound, timing control is very useful - it enables you to show one image longer than another, choose how long a transition should last, etc.

· Speaking of web design, we must consider not only how to create a slideshow, but also how to embed it into a web page. Thus, your slideshow creator must allow both easy creating slideshow and easy publishing it to the Web. And its key feature is making web-ready slideshows which can be embedded in a web site without programming skills. Usually, slideshow for web publishing is created in Flash format (.swf file).

My favorite slideshow makers that meet all requirements are:

FlashSlider (Flarium) $29
IncrediShow (IncrediTools) $69.95
CoffeeCup Photo Gallery (CoffeeCup) $39
Flash Gallery Factory (Wondershare) $49.95

Download free trials, make your choice and share your impressions in comments!