AV News Magazine | Page 38

AV News 196 - May 2014 F o to m a g ic o s o ftw a re fo r th e M a c David Allen For some time PicturesToExe has been the software of choice for many preparing digital AV presentations. Although the software authors have plans for this software to run in OSX it is not yet available. About 18 months ago I abandoned my longterm use of a Windows PC and switched to a Macbook. So a search was necessary to find a suitable alternative to either PicturesToExe or Proshow Producer both of which I had used to prepare AV's in the past. I was not keen to run Windows in emulation on the Mac not least because my other photo files, editing software, audio and video files were all organised within OSX. The search led me to Fotomagico software which in its current version has been optimised to run in Mavericks (OSX 10.9.2) The layout and functions are such that someone familiar with PicturesToExe will find the software very familiar. As can be seen there is a preview window on the left, time line below and a smaller window on the right for inputting and manipulating files. The main screen is like this when the software is opened. You are offered format options for a new AV depending on the most likely output. All that matters at this stage is choosing the aspect ratio as all the other choices can be made at a later stage. Page 36