MySlideShow for Windows

MySlideShow Gold from Anix Software is an all-in-one application for creating multimedia slideshow presentations and albums directly on your PC, without needing any other graphics or multimedia software. You can combine your photos and your favorite music together with captions and effects in an attractive, ever-changing desktop display. You can also quickly view your image archives as filmstrips or thumbnails, or create standalone, self-running executable slideshows, burn them to a CD or DVD, and send them to your family and friends. You can even use it to produce attractive catalogs and archives of everything from household items to collections and pets.

The partitions in MySlideShow's five-part interface can be dragged to resize them to suit, and there are more display options on the View menu. The basic layout is quite logical, though, with a tree view for navigating, panes for displaying file libraries and selected slides, a preview pane, and a handy projects pane that helps keep things in order. We clicked Add Selected to choose some images from My Pictures, and MySlideShow added each in sequence, displaying a configuration bar that simplifies adding captions and setting options like background, transition effects, and rotation. A sidebar sports a Settings button for project options and a Sound button that makes it extremely easy to add tunes for a background soundtrack. One extra feature we appreciate is the EXIF Inspector, which helps manage digital image information, especially digital snapshots. Another is a Favorites tab for quick access to frequently used items.

MySlideShow Gold includes various upgrades over previous versions, including the Video Generator plug-in for better video and multimedia functionality. It creates attractive slideshows with ease, and we recommend it.