Slideshow Maker: A Guide to Choosing Slideshow Software
In today's dynamic world, a slideshow is a wonderful way to share photos. Slideshows allow your friends and family to view a curated gallery of your photos without having to scroll through thumbnails and click on individual images. They allow narration or music to be place over top of them, further enhancing the experience. But in order to create these wonderful visual experiences, you need a slideshow maker. In this post, we'll go over what type of software is used to create slideshows and how to choose the best slideshow app.
What is Slideshow Software?
When choosing a slideshow app, you basically have two choices. Apps dedicated specifically to slideshows exist, and are basically video editors with fewer features. Because slideshows are easy to make in more general purpose video editors, they are also a good option. Some video editors even come with tools to make creating slideshows even easier. These editors then become nearly identical to purpose built slideshow creator software, but have the full power of a video editor to go along with it.
How to Choose the Best Slideshow Creator
Now that you know what slideshow software is, we can talk about how to go about choosing the best one. In reality, there is no single best one. Each person has different preferences and requirements. Finding the best one for you is all about figuring out what those preferences and requirements are. The 6 steps below will give you a great start to finding the slideshow software that will aid you the most in your creative endeavors.
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- Figure out what your budget it — The first step to nearly any purchase is figuring out how much you want to spend. This will allow you to quickly eliminate options that go over budget and streamline your list of final candidates.
- Decide which features you need now — Do you need a photo slideshow maker with music support, or will something more simple do? What type of transitions do you need between photos? Understanding your immediate needs will allow you to prune away candidates that aren't up to par and zero in on the best option quicker.
- Decide which features you'll need in the future — You don't want to purchase something and then figure out a year from now that you need to purchase something else because you've outgrown the first purchase. This doesn't mean you always buy the slideshow software with every possible features, just be mindful of what options you may need as time goes on.
- Research the available options — A simple Google search will bring up a ton of results for slideshow software. Remember, you can also include video editors in that search. In fact, simple video editing capability probably falls into the previous category of features you'll find yourself wanting in the future.
- Read user reviews — User reviews aren't everything, but if there are a lot of bad reviews for a product and you have a lot to choose from, they can be a good way to prune a few more choices from the final list.
- Download a demo — Most software today offers a demo or a trial of some sort. Downloading this and trying it out for each of the items on your shortlist is the most important step. Only by trying the software can you be sure it has the ease-of-use and workflow that suits your preferences.
Conclusion
At some point, you'll likely want to go beyond creating simple slideshows and be able to edit video as well. Whether its for a YouTube video or just to share with friends and family in the same place you share your slideshows, you'll need more than a basic photo slideshow maker for that task. VideoStudio is a powerful video editing to that will give you power to create those videos while also functioning as an easy-to-use video slideshow maker with music support.
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