11:00AM
FotoMagico 3 Review
A few years ago, I needed to quickly put together a slide show and I needed it to look fantastic. While I knew this was possible in iMovie, it took a lot of time and, frankly, didn't look that good.
On a whim I downloaded the trial version of FotoMagico. Within five minutes, I had my wallet out and purchased a license. Since then, I've used FotoMagico often for family and professional events. Indeed, my wife will volunteer me as the "slideshow guy" at weddings for friends and family at the drop of a hat. I can't really complain that much however because using FotoMagico for this is really quite easy.
The latest version, FotoMagico 3, adds several enhancements. FotoMagico produces professional quality slideshow presentations. It is very easy to operate with a similar "drag-and-drop" paradigm you see across the Mac platform. Take a folder full of pictures and drag it in FotoMagico and you have your slideshow. The application allows you to easily set transitions and animates individual slides with the Ken Burns effect. FotoMagico has sliders sliders for the before and after position of your photographs that make this very simple.
My workload has always been to drag the pictures in, sort them, adjust the Ken Burns effect for each picture, and drop in music. It really is that simple. You can similarly adjust rotation and insert text.
The newest version blurs the lines between FotoMagico as a slideshow application and a video application. You can now insert movies in your slideshows. You can set start and end points and even animate movies just as you would a photograph. Organizing and creating your slideshows is also now easier with an improved storyboard. Now that Boinx has teased me with this video support however, I'd like to see them take it further. Lower thirds would be very useful.
Another nice feature is the Aperture exporter plug in.
With the pro version you can get much more control over the audio. You can include multiple tracks and even the voiceover track. Each is independently controlled and adjusted.
While putting pictures in iMovie is much easier now, for speed, granular control of the Ken Burns effect, and overall presentation, I think FotoMagico still has iMovie beat.
Once you have created your slideshow, you can export it, burn it to a DVD, turn it into a screensaver, or put it on your iPod or Apple TV. Of course you can also just play it through the built-in player. This is normally how I do my wedding slideshows. The best compliment paid to this application is by the "official" photographers at the weddings I have participated in. They always ask me afterwards how I did it and they always want to know where they can get their own copy of FotoMagico. A single-user license is $29 and a single-user license for the pro version is $149. You can find out more at Boinx.com.
You can listen to this review on the Mac ReviewCast #215.
Reader Comments (37)
@Dave P. Thanks for the advice, however it is not the issue presenting our photos to clients in the studio or at expos but we offer wedding couples together with their album also a slide show with their own choice of music on DVD, so that they can show this on their own tv to family and friends. We show our photos in the studio always with Aperture-slideshow + music with one of the Mac's connected to a big screen. We needed actually FM Pro to improve the quality of iDVD. But i see now that we have to drop this offer to wedding couples in the future, as this problem cannot be solved(?)
Thanks,
Theo
@Theodoor -- I didn't realize you had a business. If you want to offer your clients the highest quality, offer them a BD (Blu-ray Disc) instead of a DVD. Or offer both, but charge more for the BD.
I export my slideshows from FotoMagico Pro at 1280x720 and the quality is gorgeous. I have also exported at 1920x1080.
Why burn discs with iDVD? Use Roxio Toast.
@Dave P. - Thanks again! The BD is probably the only solution. Never burned a Blu-ray disk. So we have to see how we go with that. Don't know at this stage wether we need special soft/hardware for that. Could you infor me about that?
I do burn cd's & dvd's with Roxio Toast since years and years.
@Theodoor -- I have Roxio Toast 10 Titanium Pro, which includes the Blue-ray module (I think it is extra cost if you don't have the Pro version). Here's the best part... you do not need a Blue-ray burner! You can burn Blue-ray content onto regular DVD-R discs! It's awesome, man! Like I said, I've done it with 1280x720 videos from FotoMagico. What I want to try next is burning 1920x1080 Blue-ray video onto a DVD-R. The problem, of course, is that there is not much room on the DVD-R for the Blue-ray video so you are limited. But my slideshows are usually less than 10 minutes. So, Theodoor, give it a try and let us know how it goes. Do you have a business website?
@Dave P - I have an older version: Roxio Toast Titanium 6. Will update this to 10-Pro. Thanks for showing me the possibilities. We always try to give the best product and you understand why these LR DVD's were always a great disappointment to us. So I will keep you posted re. the results.
www.temyahro.com
Cheers!
Actually... your site?
@ Dave P - Question: When you 'share' the slide show in FM, what do you actually select? Not DVD I presume..? HD Movie maybe? This shows a better result but I'm not sure though.
The quickest way of finding out is write to you on this forum :)
Thanks!
Real impressed with V3 and i have created a very pro looking show but exporting it is not going smoothly. I need to create a show that can be seen on windows or mac. The stand alone option so far will only work on my mac.
Any tips???
If You want the Highest DVD rsolution possible.... I only know one way: Connect your Powerbook or Macbook Pro to an external DVD recorder Via the DVI to S-Video Convertor...... Press Play on FotoMagico and record on your DVD recorder! You can do the same with an DV camera that has S-Video input. The results will be exactly as you see it played! Keep in Mind though that Apple has removed all capabilities of using S-Video or analog Video on all New Macbooks, Mac Mini,s and iMacs.........you have to pay for a $200 or more Scan convertor now to get anything decent.... Apple screwed up bigtime on this point. Now for those here saying why would a professional fotographer show his work on an Analog TV? Well because of versatility and ease of use and the feel of it..... everything just feels right on a Big TV CRT or not..... VGA and Computer screens always feel not quite right. Believe me... if the TV has S-Video and your playing your presentation in 800 x 600 or 720 x 480... it will look awesome...... especially 720x480 which is TV native resolution (Very important to know this) its ok if your preentation was made at higher resolutions..... but play it back through your S-Video out in 800x600, 720 x 480...or even 640 x 480 Overscanned.
hi, i am starting to use the last version of FotoMagico and i have made my first slideshow two days ago. I just wanted to ask how can i add credits scrolling up, like if it was a film, or tv program.
regards from Spain
I have never found a slideshow software as professional and easy to use as Fotomagico. iPhoto and iMovie cannot compare to what you can do with this program. I am sure the developers of this software realize what a prize they have, which is possibly why they devote so much effort into protecting their software sales. The purchasing process for this software is similar to the experience you will find with Adobe. Highly restrictive, highly guarded every step of the way. This is the only thing that makes me wary of this product. If only the developers would modify their purchase process they would have a winner that everyone would buy. For the longest time I thought the only option I had was to pay $129 or $89 for an upgrade because the developers push the Pro version so strongly. They should realize that the $29 version will sell 10x as many copies and they will make more money in the end. In conclusion, I wish the sales experience could be as pleasant as the user experience.
I've been using version 2.6 for several years and had no choice but to upgrade when I learned that this version did not work on my new iMac. All my DVD exports came out black. I contacted Boinx and they told me they no longer supported 2.6. So I purchased a whole new license to get to to 3.7 (no upgrade was available). Now I have LOST features that I was using. Version 3.7 Home edition does not have a standalone viewer, when 2.6 did. Additionally, I cannot open the slide shows I've edited in version 3.7 using my older versions. The only response I got from Boinx was "sorry for that".
I'm loading ~200 pics into FM3 Pro and on playing back the program I get lots of black horizontal lines cutting across my images and sometimes intermittent square 'dots'. My images are high res and are quite large. Is this a factor? Any ideas on what's happening here?