Quickly and Easily Create Slideshows with SmartSlides [Tech Tuesday]

Pixellu, the folks behind SmartAlbums, now offers SmartSlides, a no muss, no fuss slideshow application that makes short work of putting together an online slideshow.

Photo © Theano Nikitas

With its basic, three-step process, SmartSlides is an incredible timesaver and is great when you want (or need) to get a slideshow online in minutes. And I mean mere minutes—it took me less than 5 minutes to put together a slideshow with a dozen images, music and transitions. The most time-consuming part prior to initiating the three-step process was selecting the photos to include. If you want, however, to embed the slideshow on your website or blog, you’ll have to invest a little time setting that up, of course.

The basic process consists of choosing and adding images (which is surprisingly fast, even with high-res images), choosing music, adding transitions, choosing a theme, previewing and publishing. The software supports JPEGs up to 30MB, in sRGB. Pixellu recommends 2,200 pixels on the vertical edge since the software supports 4K resolution. Be sure to go into preferences and turn off the default sharpening option if you’d like and set up your logo, which will appear at the top of the first slide.

You can re-order images by dragging and dropping and you can add transitions pretty quickly since the same transition can be applied globally to the slides. The music selection, as Pixellu puts it, is “tightly curated,” so the options aren’t huge—seven categories with five music tracks each (plus the ability to upload your own). I have to say though that the music options are, to my ears, better than many other slideshow programs.

The software is still in a growing phase, with more music options to come. Right now, the software is HTML 5 and is uploaded to a Pixellu site. You can also share to Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest directly from the software or, as mentioned earlier, set it up to embed it into your website or blog. But Pixellu promises to add a feature so you can download the slideshow as a video file. According to the site, other soon-to-come improvements include better playback (smoother transitions, more polished fades, etc.). Later this year, look for additional theme options, custom buttons with external links for viewers to click and connect to your site or galleries.

Pricing is on a monthly or annual basis and is available in three levels: Starter, Pro and Studio, with the ability to store 10, 200 and 1,000 slideshows, respectively. Monthly rates are $12, $24, or $48, with the price dropping to $8, $16 or $32 with the annual plan.

You can check it out for free, and I suggest that you do. Even if you decide it’s not for you right now, I suggest keeping an eye on SmartSlides as the company keeps adding features and fine-tuning the service. I’m still amazed at how easy it is to produce a nice-looking slideshow with SmartSlides. It’s definitely worth putting on your “try it out” watch list.

To preview some slideshows, click here.

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