Best Slideshow Makers

While we’re on the subject of editing your presentation’s look for the maximum effect, let’s not forget that the Movavi Slideshow program offers 165 filters to give your slides a certain look. You can achieve the desired effect in just a few minutes whether you want a cheerful and colorful slideshow that’s going to wow your friends or a serious-looking business presentation.

This software also works perfectly well regardless of what system you’re using since it’s compatible with all the latest Windows and Mac OS. But, in light of that excellent compatibility, we do have to wonder why software this modern doesn’t come with an option to send the finished project via email or post it somewhere. It’s only integrated directly with YouTube and lets you change the image size to fit a variety of screens in case you have to do the slideshow on a phone or a huge monitor.

The program allows the slides creator to save the project in a format that’s easy to burn onto a DVD disc (usually relevant for work presentations only) but, strangely enough, doesn’t do the actual burning itself. For that, you’d need another piece of software, like DVD copy programs.

Still, it’s tough to complain when the program has a simple interface with enough variety to keep your presentations fresh even if you have to conduct them frequently. A few improvements wouldn’t hurt but it’s certainly above the competition even in its current state.

If you feel like some editing magic may be in order before your slideshow is truly complete then the Movavi Slideshow Maker is the best software choice for you. The program has full photo-editing capabilities and can turn any picture into true eye candy. It also has a pretty high number of transition effects to keep the longer presentations from getting stale and you can put background music into the show just to make sure none of the older folks falls asleep. It’s pretty easy to use despite putting out professional-looking slideshows and videos. All of the above certainly makes the Movavi Maker one of the most well-rounded choices out there.

With such abundance of features and capabilities, it’s tough to fault anyone for feeling a bit lost when first trying the MAGIX Photostory deluxe. You can browse the company’s official forum or watch some online tutorials to get the hang of things. If you’re feeling generous you could pay extra for the phone support service but the MAGIX software is one of the most expensive of its kind as is and, frankly, we wouldn’t advise spending money on the support line.

After you’ve mastered the program and made your presentation, you could just put it on a flash drive and bring it over to work. Or, thanks to the MAGIX being well-integrated, you could take one of the many options such as converting the presentation/video to DVD, Blu-ray, or various visual formats. That way you can burn the result to a disk to share with the colleagues or to make sure the office computer can handle the presentation. By the way, you can also import your creation directly to Twitter and YouTube or turn it into an email attachment, no additional clicks needed.

One of the last points we feel the need to tackle is compatibility. While the program works great on all of the latest Windows OS, it’s not compatible with Mac OS, which limits its use somewhat but not too much. Plus, the creations can be converted to later work with some Mac software for further editing.

Combining all the features you’d look for in the best slideshow maker, the MAGIX Photostory Deluxe offers the full package of editing, animation, musical cues, and much more. This software has one of the highest numbers of transition effects to keep your presentations fresh and visually appealing. Though it doesn’t work on Mac, the program is optimized for all recent Windows OS and has a pretty intuitive interface so you’ll get the hang of it easily. As far as slideshow makers go, you’d be hard-pressed to find a program with more functions and variety. If you really want to personalize your slideshows and show off your creative side, this may just be the top choice for you.

Although the initial user interface will appear quite basic, there's plenty of powerful options to be found here. This program supports the use of many standard image file formats, so there should be few (if any) compatibility problems with any of the image files that you have in your photo collection. What's more, this program also supports the importing of audio files into your project, letting you create a custom soundtrack for your slideshow, with the ability to set your slideshow to match the length of your included audio file. Plenty of other effects are included, such as the ability to add text to slides.

One of the best features of this program, however, is its speed and stability. Many other slideshow makers are known to bog down and even crash when working with large projects, yet this one keeps on ticking no matter the size of the project. This shows just how much attention the developers have paid to the small details, ensuring that your program will always work reliably for you. Although it may be missing some of the features of more expensive slideshow makers, this one still gives you a powerful slideshow making the tool at a very modest price.

While you could use the NCH PhotoStage for simple collages with family photos from vacations, we feel like you’d be wasting a significant portion of its potential. For example, the program allows the creator to record separate audio-narration for slides all along the presentation, which can come in handy if you have a long work-related presentation and little time to memorize the accompanying text. Avoid awkward silences by using the narration as your backup!

As always, the program lets you convert the resulting presentations to a variety of formats as well as import them to social media sites (one of the few to include Flickr in the line-up) and handheld devices. Also, you can burn the project to CD, DVD, or Blu-ray straight from the software, which is a pretty nice bonus as you won’t have to pay more to get a data burning program.

You can also edit the photos before finding a final place for them in the presentation, though we have to concede that the tools at your disposal are a bit basic and aren’t going to salvage a poorly shot photo. Still, they should be enough if you just need to touch up the picture to make it brighter or add contrast. Do note that whatever changes you make to the photo take a few seconds to apply as the program seems to reprocess the slideshow at once.

Despite offering subpar editing tools, the NCH PhotoStage manages to shine by giving the user plenty of customization options that refine your presentations and make them more professional. Forget about tacky transitions and awkward pauses between the slides, the program solves both issues gracefully and doesn’t even require much input from the creator as many processes are automatized. Honestly, if the software had some better customer support options and more in-depth photo-editing capabilities it could be rightfully called the best choice for professional presentation creating. Even now, this is one of the top picks if you need a slideshow maker compatible with Windows 10 and capable of creating a sleek and customized presentation to wow clients and colleagues.

Another great aspect of this slideshow creation software is what you can do with the transitions between slides. Compared to the previous version of the software, 17 new transition effects have been added to the dozens that were previously available, giving you a large number of transitions to use for creating your own highly customized slideshow. In addition, many of these transitions are customizable, allowing you to change the details of how they work, such as the length of time they occur between slides. On top of that, a whole slew of sound effects are also available, letting you add in plenty of audio effects to spice up the quality of your slideshow.

One of the best things about this software is its extremely low price. Although it's not the only affordable slideshow creation package out there, its ease of use combined with the dozens of effects it includes makes it one of the best values on the market. There is even a free trial available for download if you wish to try it out before buying, which gives you instant access to all of the available features. The trial version includes a watermark on all slideshows you create, so if you want to create one without the watermark, you'll need to purchase it first. All told, this slideshow creation package is one of the easiest ones to use while providing you with all of the power that you need to create a great looking custom slideshow.