My goal is to make slideshow DVDs that my family and friends can play on their TVs. Although I currently own Photoshop Elements 5, Photoshop Elements Premiere 3, Lightroom 1.x, and Photoshop CS3 Extended, all of this is quite new and becoming overwhelming. I have been trying to select an optimal combination of software to accomplish my goals. I have downloaded Proshow Gold and Producer trial versions. One can use Photoshop Elements 5 to manage/organize images, edit images, and create slideshows using its slideshow editor. One can also use Photoshop Elements Premiere 3 to create slideshows. Some have suggested using Elements 5 to create basic slideshow structure and then use Elements Premiere 3 to create the final show. I have completed tutorials using these tools. One can use Lightroom to manage/organize images and do some basic editing. Images are easily passed to CS3 for photographic imaging. Neither of these tools would be used in the creation of a slideshow other than to export the edited images for use with a slideshow editor. One can use Proshow Producer to accept PSD or DNG files and create a slideshow which can be output in iso format. One then burns the TV DVD using something like Nero Express. I have completed tutorials using these tools as well. Some have told me that one can do everything one wants to do with Elements & Elements Premiere. Others have suggested that one will very quickly run into limitations with Premiere and will find that Photoshow Gold or Producer offers more control over the production and is easier to use. From my limited trials, the Proshow programs do seem easier and more intuitive. Even with Proshow, it appears one has a need for Elements. For example, I wanted to insert thought bubbles with text onto an image. I first had to create a psd of a bubble in a layer in Elements and then bring it into Proshow (of course, I could have used Custom Shapes in CS3 to do the same). On the other hand, I wanted to create a slide that has a magnifying glass moving around it. A copy of it can be seen at photodex (http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewshow.html?fl=2780634&alb=0). One can do it rather easily with Proshow Producer. It can be done in Elements/Premiere, but it is not as clean and easy. I am about at the point of thinking that an optimal combination of tools would be Lightroom, CS3, and Proshow Producer. However, someone suggested that I really needed to take a close look at P2E. I would guess that P2E could do the layered bubble thing easily? How difficult would it be to use P2E to do the floating magnifying glass example? From reading the manual, P2E cannot input PSD or DNG files. How well does it handle TIFF (always hate to convert to jpg because of the compression loss)? Does it have any image file size limitations for the input files? How well does it burn TV DVDs (quality) - some have suggested that one needs something like Nero or DVDarchitect for DVD burning? If I understand what I have been reading, P2E does not provide random transitions? Before I download the P2E trial and give it a whirl, would anyone want to offer a comparison of P2E and PSP features, ease of use, support, quality of product, and stability? Obviously, P2E has a cost advantage. I understand this is a P2E forum and expect most to be high on P2E, which is OK. However, any weaknesses? Thank you for reading a rather long post. I look forward to your objective and subjective thoughts. Regards, Mike
