With the rapid speed of our technological progress, it sometimes is hard to cope up. Our jobs demand a lot from us, such as new skills that we need to learn. Just like creating a professional-looking slideshow, it needs a lot of skills in making one. Good thing that Icecream Apps figured a way out. They’ve created a lot of software solutions for newbies. One of the application that they made and stood out is the Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro.
Along with the other applications, Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro doesn’t require much space for your computer. Even if your computer is a Jurassic that still runs on Windows XP, you still are able to use this software. It gives me an impression that this program is built to cater all generations.
Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro is already in their second version. This second version comes with a bang for it had a lot of major changes such as the increase of slideshow creation, the easy upload, photo shuffle, drag & drop and an updated graphic user interphase with a lot of bug fixes. Let us go through and point out all the things that this program has to offer.
Making a slideshow with Adobe Premiere or Corel Videostudio really requires intense knowledge of the software and has a very high software requirement. But with the Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro, you don’t need to have high technical skills and a high-end computer to run this software.
More than that, you can also easily produce a professional slideshow that would make you stand out. The program features handy controls in where you can work miracles and present regular photos in a stunning way.
You also can visit their website support and browse through the frequently asked questions. It contains a lot of walkthroughs, information and tutorials for this slideshow maker.
Features
1. Drag and Drop
Sometimes it is difficult to start if you don’t know what to do first, but thanks to the Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro, they did have a pretty informative user interface on which you don’t get confused easily in getting started. I will walk you through in getting you started on how to make a slideshow.
To create slideshows, you can easily start from just dragging your photo and dropping it in the dashboard. It also works if you drag and drop a folder. You can either drag a single or a group of files or drag a folder. This is the easiest way to add photos to your slideshow.
You can also click the “Add Photo” button at the top left of the main dashboard on where a window will pop-up. Just go to the destination on where your photos are and select the photos that you wanted. Once the photo will show up in the right field of the dashboard, then you are good to go.
2. Wide Variety of Transitions
It is always much better to have different transitions than just a repetitive way of flashing the pictures. Well good thing that his software is offering it. Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro is giving its user a lot of options for making transitions for it has over 26 transitions. You can also control each photo in the slideshow by choosing the desired time of displaying, and also type and duration of transition effects.
They also make it easier and faster for the selection has defaulted to Random in which it can save you a lot of time and thinking in selecting the transition for your photograph. You can also easily apply one transition to all of your photos in an instant just by choosing the transition that you wanted in the “Apply to all” row at the bottom and the transition will be automatically applied to all of the pictures.
The program handles photos in JPG, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF formats.
3. Easy Playback
We always wanted to check everything before we hit the final button. This slideshow video creator has ease of access in playing back the transitions. There is an inbuilt media player that allows you to check the transition effects and the entire slideshow. In this way, you can easily review your work before you create the final video. You can either check the whole video slideshow or just a slideshow of a certain picture transition.
You can click the blue “Preview” button located on the bottom right of the main dashboard of the slideshow creator and it will play the whole video slideshow. If you wanted to view just a transition of one picture, you can also click the “Play” button on the picture of files list located on the left side of the slideshow creator.
4.Simple Video Settings
Video and audio settings are very complicated in other video collage maker but not for this one. This slideshow app doesn’t make your life more complicated for it only has few settings which are the essentials for your video slideshow. So, what more could you ask for?
For your output video settings, you can either scale to fit and use the original ratio on your picture and video collage. You also can adjust the resolution for your output video, add an audio and apply offsets and fades. It supports audio files in MP3, WAV, and WMA. You can also add an audio track to complete the impression and even configure the offset and fade values for audio.
You also can do a preset for all your future video slideshow just by accessing the settings. You can access the settings by clicking the “Settings” button located in the bottom right on the picture video maker. This is where you can set up all your default settings that can be very helpful in your next slideshow project.
The slideshow video can be exported as WebM, AVI, MOV and MP4.
5. History
It always is nice to look back on our past works and either reminisce, learn or just laugh about it. This photo slideshow maker is giving us easier access to our previous work. You can easily access go to your history by just clicking the “History” button located on the upper left of the slideshow software.
By choosing your previous slideshow, you can easily recover your previous slideshow and make changes then and there without starting again from scratch.
6. Uploading a Slideshow Video
This program helps you upload your video to some online services right away. The moment that you create the video slideshow, it automatically prompts you that the slideshow is successful and you will gain the option to upload it directly through Google Drive, Dropbox, and YouTube.
In this way, you can easily access your files anywhere as long as you have an internet with you. This would save you a lot of time by manually uploading it using the normal way.
Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro can export files as AVI, MP4, MOV and WEBM. These formats are widely accepted in all mobile devices and players.
7. Online Support
I was just visiting their website and was just browsing through their page looking for some quick tips on making a collage video and suddenly somebody pinged me. I was amazed at how they easily offer assistance to strangers (Phillip really was a real person).
This just displays a good customer service. Their support website has a lot of things to offer. It has the frequently asked questions which tackle most of the usual issues that the user encounters. You also can report a bug if you find one and as well as access the slideshow maker manuals.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This photo slideshow maker has shown a lot of good features. However, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and it also has its own share of weaknesses. I have noticed a couple of those and I will cite a couple of its strengths and weaknesses.
Strength
1. Low System Requirements
As a slideshow maker software, having a very low system requirement is pretty impressive. With the recent version, seems that they already have faced out the older versions of windows and the minimum operating system that it can run is Windows XP. As long as you have a processor of at least 1.66 GHz, a 512 RAM, a video card that supports 1024×768 resolution and just at least 250MB of free disk space then this software can still kick start on your old PC.
2. It Saves
What’s more satisfying than seeing your project recovered after a computer crash or a sudden power outage? The slideshow program allows saving projects after the video slideshow creation. Never again will you lose any of your projects even if you don’t have enough time to complete them in one session.
All of your works will be securely stored in the program and you can get back to them whenever you want. Not only that, you can also recover your previous projects through the history and everything will be the same like the last time that you left the project.
3. Very Basic
The program is indeed intuitive and has a lot of features that can help novices. It can easily create professional slideshows in just a little time effortlessly. The only thing that you can adjust for the picture is just the resolution, transitions and the intervals. A novice would really appreciate this for it caters everything that he would need in a slideshow maker software.
The output formats are also limited to 4 types which are AVI, MOV, WEBM and MP4. These definitely are popular video formats that can be widely played on any device.
An expert would think differently about this product, for it lacks the photo editing capability and other customizable features. Well then again, a coin has 2 sides and the expert would say that the slideshow software is too basic. I believe that the novices will consider this as the best slideshow software but the experts who have used the premier pro or after effects would disagree.
Weakness
4. It only supports Windows
Sadly, this product is not for an Apple guy or a Linux geek. Though Icecream Apps LTD (developer) is a software company that produces various popular software that is available for Windows and Mac OSX, this program only supports Windows. The developers might still be working on a new platform that would support Mac. There is a whole wide market of Mac and Linux users out there and it really is a big opportunity for them to venture out.
5. No Ctrl+Z
Apparently, there is no “Ctrl+Z” in this software. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t undo anything. There is just no keyboard shortcut in undoing the changes right away. Unlike any other program, you can easily undo and redo your changes by just a keyboard shortcut but in this slide show maker software, you just need to manually undo your changes through a couple mouse clicks.
Pricing and Trials
The developers lets you try the software with a couple of limitations. For the trial version, you are limited in adding 20 photos for 1 slide show and an output video format of just WEBM. It should be enough for you to get feel how the program is like and how efficient it is in generating high-quality slideshow videos for you.
The pro version has unlimited photos per slideshow, 4 different types of video output (AVI, MP4, MOV and WEBM), add a background audio and priority support. What’s amazing is that if you purchase the program right now, you will be able to enjoy the 40% discount. So instead of the regular price of $29.95, you can get this for a very cheap price of $19.95. But there is more! It comes with a license for TWO computers.
Conclusion
Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro has its own share of strengths and weaknesses. But one thing is for sure, it is very efficient! Other slideshow maker software requires hours and hours in rendering an output video and playback in reviewing your work is really laggy. But with the Icecream Slideshow Maker Pro, they just solved all that problem.
I understand that there is going to be 2 sides of a coin, but the bottom line is that this photo slideshow maker is very efficient and produces quality videos. It is a no-nonsense straightforward program that generates high quality slide show in an instant.
With the ease of use, help and support, system requirements and performance, I rate this program 4/5. It has a lot of potentials to be the best slideshow software in the market. The program is still new and pretty sure that there are going to be a lot of cool features that will be made available in the future.
So, forget about the myth on where you need to be a geek before you can create a professional video slideshow and don’t be sad if you feel that you won’t meet the system requirements for this slideshow software may just be the answer to your delayed photo presentation.
