DVD Slide Shows

[DJett]

All these great editing tools in PSE to get your pictures perfect and then you are limited to creating a lower quality VCD to display your work to family and friends on the big screen. Many posts on the forum of users going with ProShow Gold, Premier Elements, and other software to create their slide shows.

[drummermom]

Photoshop Elements dovetails nicely with Premiere elements and they're selling them bundled for just about the price of one! I really like the DVD slide shows that I've done in Premiere Elements.

[Barb O]

drummermom - I am glad that you like Premiere Elements, but I disagree with your implication that it is an acceptable solution.

It should not be necessary for people to buy an entirely different product just to write a slide show, which was created in Photoshop Elements 3, to a DVD. Now I do realize that DVD authoring and burning software has a monetary value - but not roughly 50% or greater of the cost of Photoshop Elements. Also, what can be a showstopper is that not all systems which can run Photoshop Elements 3 and can burn DVDs will run Premiere Elements (which is primarily a video editing program).

Writing a slide show for TV display on to a DVD should be part of the Photoshop Elements program.

Barb O

[tfry]

Barb,

I'm glad you like PE3 but disagree with your observation that a primarily photo editing application should make TV quality DVD's

I think the of the ability to produce a VCD is kinda like a little extra in PSE,
you can use it if you like, but to make a really nice TV presentation you need to use software that is created to do just that, such as one of the applications mentioned in the first post.

While it would be awesome to be able to purchase one application that does everything, including the dishes, that's not how software generally works.

P.S. If anyone finds a software application that *does* do the dishes *please* post a link :wink:

[Barb O]

The problem is that Adobe markets Photoshop Elements on their web site and on their retail box as having a slide show function. So many people buy the PSE 3 product thinking that they have a slide show function and because it has the Adobe name they think it will have decent photo quality.

People doing slide shows do not need a video editor like Premeire Elements either; it is overkill and it will not run on many machines that will run Photoshop Elements 3.

Adobe should either fix the slide show quality (by providing at least MPEG2 on DVD) or eliminate the slide show function from Photoshop Elements. The current VCD slide show function just wastes people's time and makes them mad at Adobe.

Barb O

[Jodi Frye]

...and puts money in Photodex's pocket ...Pro Show Gold money.

[MikeDCambs]

Proshow Gold Users may be interested to know that Photodex will be
releasing a new version "very shortly" (to use their Support Team's own
words).

[curse]

I'm with Barb O on this one.

The main reason I bought only Elements 3 was because it was supposed to allow me to create slide shows. If I would have known I had to buy the bundle with Premier, I would have done it. Now I have to buy Premier, or an equivalent, at a higher price. I think I was misled and I'm not happy about this. Sure would be nice if they would somehow allow us to upgrade to include Premier at the bundle price. Of course the best solutuion would be to just provide the product that fulfills the claim on the advertising and packaging.

For all you experts, which way should I go now. Premier, Pro Show, or something else. Thanks.

[MikeH]

Burning slide shows on VCD is without doubt PSE3s weakest feature. I too was very disappointed with the poor quality of VCDs produced by PSE3 - it's by far inferior to Proshow and Nero. Although it wasn't the reason I bought PSE3.

I agree with Barb that Adobe needs to fix this on the next release - either change the burning engine to that used by Proshow or Nero (PSE3 currently uses a version of Roxio's Sonic software) or upgrade the format to DVD. At the very least, the ability to burn the existing Custom Slide Show on DVD should be added - it doesn't need the functionality of Premiere or Proshow as well.

If Adobe doesn't fix this then burning VCDs should be dumped altogether - and replaced by more editing functionality, afterall as Tami says PSE3 is primarily an editing package.

I'd much rather have top notch editing software (like PSE3) and separate (also top notch) slide show software - not something that tries to be all things to all people and comprises along the way (which PSE3 does with burning slide shows).

Mike

[Mary]

Very well said Mike - I agree 100%