Slide show creation software?

[Gurtch]

Not sure where I should post this. I have made several slide shows with music using Proshow Gold. They went out of business. Their software had a nice library of royalty free classical music. I want to update my slide show, but alas,  I am having trouble with the software navigating where files are supposed to be, but the program says there are files missing. Not sure if the program became corrupted, or if I screwed up. I was afraid this would happen. Having made a dedicated place to file the completed slide show I was concerned where all the photos and music were stored. The photos were draggd and dropped into a dedicated place as the show was developed, and music downloaded from Proshow's library as I developed the show. I am willing to start from scratch all over again with new software, and make a new up to date slide show. Any recommendations? My show has music, fades, titles and dissolves, but nothing more complicated than that. It is about 30 minutes long. Background: I am an 84 year old amateur involved with serious photography since 1959 when I built my first darkroom. Here is a 4 minute bersion which will give you an idea what I need to do. Thanks all in advance
Dave Gurtcheff
Abbreviated show here:
http://Http://www.vimeo.com/428585063

[Gurtch]

Sorry, the link should be
http://Http://www.vimeo.com/428585063

[Dave Gurtcheff]

Try again:

[Joe Towner]

Have you tried the recommended software, Photopia - http://photopia.nl/proshow/

From the Proshow Gold site:

"If you're looking for a great replacement solution for creating slideshows on your desktop, our official recommendation is Photopia. Photopia offers the next generation of slideshow software. Built from the ground up, but using Photodex's knowledge and experience, Photopia has created a new product that will be instantly familiar to ProShow users while also taking a major leap forward.

Photopia was designed to support existing ProShow content. Slideshows, Slide Styles, Transitions, and Templates from ProShow can be imported directly into Photopia Director and Creator.

[Gurtch]

Thanks Joe. That program is a monthly fee program, which I do not do.
Best regards
Dave

[John Nollendorfs]

Use it for a month and then unsubscribe Dave!

[Peter McLennan]

Hi Dave.

I've had good luck with a video editing program called "Da Vinci Resolve" from Blackmagic Design. It will do everything I see in your show.  (lovely, by the way)

It's a big, complex, professional software suite, but you don't have to learn it all in order to make slide shows with it.  Once you're happy with the result, you export (render) a video file that is self contained and easily posted to Vimeo or YouTube, much like what you've done.

Best of all, it's free.  Windows, Mac or Linux.

It's not the same vein as yours, but here's what I did last week while I was learning to use it.   2 minute vid.

https://youtu.be/xaYhFtIrEPc

[John Nollendorfs]

Very nice Peter!

[kers]

I use often keynote- the apple program for presentations...
It works well with durations, text, fades, even you can put videos in.
It is very flexible for changes, and adding images.
The only thing i never use is sound, so don't know about that.

[Alan Klein]

I use Adobe Premiere Elements.  It runs around $75 -, $100 to own.  They have automatic assembly as well as pro modes.  There's free music on the web but what I do is to buy a specific song I like from Amazon.  Then download the MP4 version. It's usually 99 cents up to $1.25 that I put on my slide show. 

Regarding your problem of finding things, the trick is to create a single folder and put everything into that one folder including the final created movie.  The songs, movie app, stills, etc.  That way all the files that makes up the movie stay together.  Otherwise, if they're spread all over the hard drive, when you move things around, the movie app won't be able to find the files.  Even the songs.  What I do is if all my songs are kept in one folder, I'll make a copy of the songs I'm using for the movie and place a duplicate in the special folder for the movie. 

Premiere Elements also also will create an archive of all parts of pictures, narration, songs,m etc into one file for saving later if you wish to modify the poriginal.

Here's one where I incorporated slides and short video clips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcmwLSiS-as&t=5s

Here's another with only stills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MogdCeRNqBM&t=69s


Also, note that Windows 10 if you use that has a Movie app that's free.