[PThom]

Hi there! I hope someone can help me with which software to purchase to do large presentations. I will have about 400 slides and music and transitions. I want to be able to put it on a dvd or cd and play it off a laptop to a large screen through and epson digi projector. I have been told that both Fotomagico and iworks are good for large scale projection where resolution won't be lost.
Can someone help me with which one is better for me to purchase and the steps I would use to make this happen? I'm a pretty good photographer but not so literate with computers . I work on a desk top imac for photos but have a dell laptop for shows so the dvd or cd has to be able to run on anything
PLEASE help-kids camp is my business and this show is important for parenst and kids

Thanks!

[OldToad]

Photo to Music is a very good slideshow application that lets you do considerable amount of customizing of transitions, KB effect, adding titles, music etc.

I've read about converting Keynote presentations to Quicktime and adding to iDVD but haven't tried it myself. For real pizzaz you might look at PhotoPresenter. You can download and run it in demo mode to see if it could work for you. You would add your music before the slideshow you want it to play with, then the slides, more music, more slides, etc. it has over 25 themes of which these are two: Apple TV Intro and Reflection. It may be a little too much fluff for your situation but they do show well.

[dcpics]

While not the easiest to use for slide shows, Final Cut Express (I know it's expensive) will let you add transitions, change timing on individual photos and use multiple music tracks as well as output for DVD.

It will also set you up for days when you want to add video to the presentations.

[Heyoka_Happiness]

Have you tried Keynote.

[fotonut]

A number of my photographer friends highly recommend Pro Show Gold, in fact it was featured during one of the presentations at the Photographic Society of America Conference in Arizona last September. I haven't done any slide shows yet, but am planning on using Pro Show Gold when I start later this year.

[OldToad]

That's a PC application. Do they have a Mac version somewhere on their site? I couldn't find it. Or are you going to run it on a PC?

[fotonut]

Didn't realize it was only a PC application -- I have a PC desktop so I may end up using that computer instead, but would rather use my laptop. I'll keep checking and if I come up with any additional info, will post it.

[roscoe]

have you looked at Adobe Acrobat Professional? it will do a slide show with transitions and music can be added. file sizes can be kept to reasonable size plus the ability to play on any computer with acrbat reader installed