Slideshow from within folders?

[Lotto]

I need a program that will slideshow from within folders. I store a year's worth of pictures on a CD and each group of event photos is in a named/dated file. I'd love to be able to select folders and slideshow without opening each folder. Is there such a monster?

[Suhit Gupta]

I believe ACDSee will do that for you, check it out at http://www.acdsystems.com/English/index.htm. I don't believe it is free though, and I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Suhit

[JR]

Thumbs Plus (http://www.cerious.com/thumbnails.shtml) does it as well. As with ACDSee, it's not free either. Most people I know have one of the two on their PC's for viewing pics.

[Godsongz]

I've used Thumbs Plus since the first version and have always loved it, but I'm looking now at Thumbs Plus and Picasa cohabitating on my hard drive and wondering if I really need both.

[Jason Dunn]

I'm not really familiar with Thumbs Plus - how would you guys rank it against Picasa or ACDSEE? Any distinct advantages?

[JR]

I'm not really familiar with Thumbs Plus - how would you guys rank it against Picasa or ACDSEE? Any distinct advantages?

I haven't used ACDSee for a while, but I consider ThumbsPlus more of a photo editor and Picasa more of a photo viewer and "tweaker".

Picasa has a great UI (it's strongest selling point). It makes viewing the pictures enjoyable. It's polished.

ThumbsPlus is a little more functional. You can do batch edits and create wallpaper (stretched, centred, etc.). I also find it faster than Picasa. On the other hand, I find the red eye remover on Picasa much better than ThumbsPlus (I'm a version behind though).

And you can add keywords in ThumbsPlus.

For me, I use ThumbsPlus myself (it has a lot of shortkeys too which I like) mostly on my computer. Picasa is on my wife's computer. That's where I keep all of our digital photos and tweak them (remove red eye, crop, etc.). If I had to have one, I'd probably keep ThumbsPlus. Having said that, I am happy with my Picasa purchase as well.

[Godsongz]

Thumbs has a huge range of file formats, and easy conversion between any of them. Fantastic batch abilities too. I have a batch set up to take all selected photos (whatever format), rotate them to landscape (if needed), resize & resample to 320x240, save to a 75% quality jpg (itsy bitsy teenie weenie file size) and dump the result to a syncronized directory with my PDA's SD Card (while retaining the unchanged original in the original location). All at the touch of the F11 key. Great timesaver for creating low-res (but full screen) slideshows in Imageer on my 2215, and not filling up my SD card in the process.

Thumbs is nowhere near as slick and pretty as Picasa. Its more of a workhorse image application.

(wow I used a lot of parentheses, so I'll borrow one of my favorite sig lines from PPCT, can't remember whose this is, but I loved it)
Parenthetical remarks (however relevent) are (usually) unnesessary

[Lotto]

Thanks guys! will look at both of these this week. Was hoping for a freebie or was hoping one program might have it all.

[Jason Dunn]

Thumbs Plus sounds a lot like ACDSEE, which does basically everything you guys have talked about - although pressing F11 to trigger a macro like that sounds cool. ;-)

[Mr. MacinTiger]

:?:
Not sure if Pics2Exe has this feature yet or now, but I used it up until last year and really liked it.

http://www.wnsoft.com You may want to check it out!

[Lotto]

Thanks! Will check it out.

[Bob12]

Lotto - if you're using Windows XP, it includes 3 files you can put on the CD that will autostart and run all pictures on the disc regardless of folders or subfolders. The three files are:

autorun.exe
autorun.inf
gdiplus.dll

BTW: are you going to create a walking camera avatar? :)

[Lotto]

Wow, I didn't know this! Thanks, will try this next time I burn a cd of pictures. Especially good for when I burn a cd of pictures for my son's classroom teachers, they aren't too puter savvy yet. :(

Great idea on the camera, anyone have a cool one?

[Gary Sheynkman]

Wow, I didn't know this! Thanks, will try this next time I burn a cd of pictures. Especially good for when I burn a cd of pictures for my son's classroom teachers, they aren't too puter savvy yet. :(

Great idea on the camera, anyone have a cool one?

Why do you burn pics for your son's teachers? :?:


Yeah...use a canon 1d mk2 and make it walk...or run... :lol:

[Suhit Gupta]

Yeah...use a canon 1d mk2 and make it walk...or run... :lol:
Wow, only if you want to spend approx. $5k 8O. I mean it is a great camera but buy it only if you are a pro or have money to spare.

Suhit

[Lotto]

Why do you burn pics for your son's teachers? :?:


I take pictures at school/class events, field trips etc. I burn them on cd, and the teachers put them on the classroom computer as a slide show screen saver, or some print them for bulletin boards. Pictures of kids washing their hands above the sink for example. Young kids love to see pictures of themselves or classmates doing activities. Parents enjoy the slideshows when they visit especially of an event they couldn't attend.