Archive for maker

OSXcellence – Xilisoft Photo SlideShow Maker Review

Most of us take photos of family, of our holidays, or big events, and these photos hold many memories, hence you want to share them. You upload them to Flickr or Facebook, you email them to your friends, and you might even get a few prints done for your Nan. But since the invention of the slide projector, no other way of exhibiting pictures has been as enthralling as a slideshow.

iPhoto, all-rounder that it is, has a fine slideshow builder, which is getting better with every edition of iLife. iPhoto’s effort, however, isn’t comprehensive, and so there is room for other apps to fill the void. Xilisoft Photo Slideshow Maker is one such app, but is it the offering you should invest in?

Xilisoft doesn’t trump iPhoto on looks – it’s a very ‘PC looking’ app. Looks, of course, aren’t everything, however, and Xilisoft is pretty slick at loading pictures. Once you’ve chosen the photos you want to use, Xilisoft provides a fairly simple route to slideshow. After arranging the order of your images, you can adjust the length of time each photo is displayed, and the transition length between photos, in milliseconds. You can also control which transition styles are used (although the possibilities in this area are rather limited when compared to iPhoto’s range), and whether you want a Ken Burns-style zooming effect.

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OSXcellence – Picture Collage Maker Lite Review

What’s better than a great photo? Lots of great photos on the same sheet of paper, of course; and so the collage creation app is born. Or should I say, “apps,” as this is not a niche market. Today’s app, Picture Collage Maker Lite, is one of many, but will it be this app that is the remedy for all of your multi-photo cravings?

This Lite version comes with 42 templates, including some quite elaborate, themed templates – Christmas and Wedding being examples. Additionally, there are numerous layout templates, which go beyond the usual grid, and allow your images to be arranged in a neat, but seemingly random pattern. A good variety of grid-based templates are available to use as well, if you so desire. Each of these templates has an adjustable size (although if you want to create something bigger than 1920×1440 pixels, you’ll need to upgrade to the full version of Picture Collage Maker).

The controls for making your collage are simple and well built. You can alter how the photos “lie” and the amount of the original image that is masked. There is a large library of shapes and looks available for masking, including theme-related shapes. If you fancy, text can be inserted onto the collage in the same way that photos are. Read More→