Pixiq

Photodex has just released a new version of its ProShow Plug-in for Adobe Lightroom. The plug-in helps photographers quickly create video slideshows by removing all the busy-work involved with preparing photos and importing them into a show. The plug-in is completely free and supports both Mac and PC. It also supports ProShow Web, the company's web based slideshow creation service.

Users can export images from Lightroom to ProShow Producer, Photodex's professional slideshow creation software. Export support for ProShow Producer is PC only.

When exporting to ProShow Producer, the ProShow Plug-in for Lightroom offers additional built-in features that jumpstart show creation and make creating a slideshow easier than ever. The plug-in automatically prepares and exports photos to a folder, creates a basic show containing the photos, and opens the show in Producer. Users can set a number of parameters in the plug-in to help set up the basics of their slideshow. Options for selecting transitions, motions effects, photo borders and adding captions from metadata are all supported in the plug-in. Users can also select from presets that automatically create shows that can be fine-tuned in Producer.

The ProShow Plug-in for Lightroom is free and can be downloaded directly from the Adobe Lightroom Exchange website. The plug-in is Mac and PC compatible and works with Lightroom 2.0 or newer versions.

What is ProShow Web?

ProShow Web, is Photodex's all-new service for creating instant video slideshows online. The service works by intelligently mixing photos, videos and music together into a unique video slideshow. Users can create free, 15-photo slideshows or opt for a Plus or Premium account. Once created, shows can be customized with over 600 built-in, drag and drop effects and easily shared online or downloaded to a computer.

ProShow Web expands Photodex's ProShow product line to the web, providing a new platform for slideshow creation. Its quick, and easy since the service does most of the hard work. Mac (that's right, I said Mac) users or PC users simply pick a theme, upload their content, choose a song from the royalty-free music library and ProShow Web instantly creates a polished video slideshow, ready to share or fine-tune further.

ProShow Web provides a robust collection of themes as well as over 600 drag and drop effects that can be mixed and matched to create a truly unique video. In addition, you can add even more effects through StylePacks and Transitions Packs, bringing the number of available effects up to over 1,000.

Finished shows stream as Flash video directly from ProShow Web and can be shared in a number of formats. Built-in social networking tools post videos to Facebook and upload directly to Youtube. Videos can be embedded or linked to directly from ProShowWeb.com and played back on the latest smart phones and devices as HTML5 video. Downloads let users save videos to their computer as an HD video file (up to 1080p for Premium accounts) or grab ready-to-burn disc images for DVD and Blu-ray.

A unique element exclusive to ProShow Web is the ability to download and edit any video created online into Photodex's ProShow Producer. In Producer, users can trim video clips, crop and retouch photos, trim and fade audio tracks, set text formatting and fonts, create their own custom effects, layouts and much more.

ProShow Web is available in Free, Plus and Premium accounts. For more information and pricing, go to www.photodex.com.