Clear Slide show required!

I'm trying to build a slide show with occasional captions and background music. I've tried the two software packages I have on my PC - Photoshop Elements 3.0 slide show function and Pinnacle Studio V9 SE. I'm unhappy with both - the latter makes the photos blurry, whilst the former tries to compensate by sharpening the images but it still comes out indistinct! I took the photos with my Canon SLR 300D in RAW and using Capture One and Photoshop Elements 3.0 each photo is as clear and sharp as hell at full screen view - you could cut your fingers on them! But as soon as I put them into a slide show, the fog descends. Is there a setting I've not understood or is it the limitation of the software? What other (reasonably priced) alternatives are out there?

Phoshow Gold - http://www.photodex.co​m - look at the sample shows there. I use it for wedding shows.

Slide show on computer screen? On LCD panel projector? On TV?
Also, if on computer, you don't mean slide show projecting the RAW, you mean you converted them to TIF or JPG, right?

A few more details please.

If the output is to computer screen or LCD panel, the "rendering engine" your computer program is using has a big impact on image quality. I've tried 4-5 different methods and programs, but surprisingly, the closest I've gotten to old fashion sharp contrasty 35mm slide shows on computer (an old 35mm projector has at least a 1000:1+ contrast ratio) is the Windows/Mac versions of iView Media Pro slide show function. Why? It uses Apple Computer's QuickTime as the rendering engine for the images, even under Windows. I've gotton presentations with good LCD panels recently to rival 35mm, at least from audience response.

The RAWs are normally developed to TIF or JPG for slide show. QuickTime can render even the RAW at stellar quality on computer, but still not recommended.

Also, your images are not in AdobeRGB are they? I shoot in AdobeRGB, but if you are projecting to a TV or LCD panel, you must convert that set to sRGB first or the images will look foggy (poor contrast).

Hope this gets you on recovery path....Jack

Believe it or not, I've gotten beautiful results using the Windows Movie Maker (v5.1) program that seems to be part of Windows XP. I also have used the product MyDVD by Sonic and another thing called ShowBiz that is also adequate - both of which were just bundled in with new DVD burners.

Take a look at Jalbum. (http://jalbum.net/) It hase a slideshow built in + it will generate thumbnails, build webpages and link to either the original files or resized copies, then upload to the host server for you, although I only use it to put pics on CDs. Just point it to the directory where your files are located and choose an output directory. Very easy to use. And it's free. Lots of different page designs, too.
Try the "Vertical" skin with the Black.css "Style" for a clean album that doesn't get between your work & the viewer.

You can also order the images without worrying about the file names or dates. Press the edit button in the image ordering section. You will then see a text editor pop up with each image on its own row. Just rearrange the images and save, then generate an album again. Only downside is that you'll have to do that for each folder if you have a multi folder web.
Enjoy!

Additional info as requested: I'm building the slide show on a standard computer screen (ViewSonic 19") but if I like what I see, I'll want to burn it to DVD. I've tried TIF and JPG and have the same problem with both - and I've tried sRGB and Adobe RGB and seem to lose definition with either of those too. (Thanks for the tip about sRGB for TVs – I’d not thought of that). I think my next step is to try some of the recommended SW packages to see if the picture quality differs with these.

I am selling Pro Show Gold in the Marketplace... https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=112229

OK, based on your response, you likely have either a color management problem, e.g., a mismatch of profiles somewhere in your workflow, leading to the "washed-out low contrast" appearance. Or you just have a crappy low contrast monitor, or a mismatch between monitor viewing profile and image profile.

Most everything I have learned about DVD slide shows, I put here, right-click to download:
http://postit.rutgers.​edu …tal%5FSlide%5FS​hows%2Epdf

Hope that helps.
Jack

Jack,
That's a great summary & good tips! Thanks,
Michael

Well, I trialled Proshow Gold and liked what I saw - especially the photo clarity and colour management. So I bought it but have had no end of trouble trying to play the slide show I burned onto DVD. I've tried 3 different DVD players and none of them recognised the disc as playable. I can only play it using Proshow Gold or Windows Media Player on my own PC. Photodex support have offered some tips but seem a bit stumped. Has anyone else had this problem and did you overcome it?

rbkeen
At the risk of recomending yet another program for you to try, here goes.

one of the worlds simplest and yet most used slide show software available is..

Picture to Exe. the great thing is you download from the web and use as a free trial.
only a small download, tremendous support, forums, and many examples of shows on the web. shows can be saved as a exe file and so they can be run on any computor without the need to have the software installed on that machine.
take a look...
http://www.wnsoft.com/

also have a look at some example shows here..
http://www.beechbrook.​com/pte/

Cheers
Martin (Huckaback Photo)

I have just found the other bit of info I wanted to share with you and others on this forum.
its a great artical and tells all about which software to use or not to use.

Please read this first, it explains a lot about slide shows, and may save you the expense of trial and error.

http://www.rtfract.com​/digiview.htm

Martin (Huckaback Photo)

Martin, that article is old now. It talks about proshow 2 being out "soon", where i've being using 2.5 for quite a while and 2.6 has just been released.

rbkeen, try buring on a different computer/DVD writer, and try a different type of media - ie try a different brand, DVD-R and DVD+R, and write once disks as well as rewritable disks. A friend of mine burned a disc and couldn't get it to work on any DVD player, but it worked perfectly in my cheap home DVD player. I've made slide shows for a half dozen customers and they worked perfectly for everyone, using Imation and/or Verbatin DVD-R disks.

Tim
well spotted You are right about it being old, possible it might be of use to someone as there is an insight about various types of software available.

Often its the actual DVD players that cause problems, being non compatible I think.
although I'm not into the DVD side of things other than burning my files to them for back up purposes.
the Pictures to Exe works so well most other people I know going around doing AV shows seem to use it, lots of shows have to many different disolves etc. some great AV's are often found to use only the fade .
I do have 5 or 6 dif programs for slide shows and now use only PTE.

Cheers
martin (Huckaback Photo)

I should have mentioned I use a laptop and digital projector and don't put any shows through the TV or DVD.
Martin