Multimedia developer WnSoft has released Perfect Photo Show, a free tool for creating video or YouTube slideshows.

The core of the program works much like any other slideshow builder. A file browser helps you navigate to your images; you drag and drop them onto the slideshow timeline, then rearrange them into your preferred order.

Perfect Photo Show’s main appeal is that you don’t have to do anything more. The program will by default add motion to your slideshow by zooming in or out, and randomly applying mosaic or dissolve transitions. The results can look great, and if you’re happy then you can export them as an AVI video, or directly upload them to YouTube in just a few clicks.

Create video or YouTube slideshows with a few drag and drops

If you need more, then there’s an option to add a soundtrack (MP3, WMA, OGG or WAV). A few basic settings allow you to turn off the zoom effects, or one or both of the transition types.

There are also limitations, most seriously in handling portrait images. Perfect Photo Show can only use a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio, and won’t resize other images to fit, so any portrait shots will be cropped to show their centre only.

The other issue here is that there’s no slide-level control over the project. You can tell the program you want slides to be displayed for 5 seconds (for example), and that you’d like to use only dissolve transitions, but these settings apply to the entire slideshow: you can’t vary them per slide.

These aren’t necessarily fatal issues. Perfect Photo Show is exceptionally easy to use, and if the source images are chosen carefully then it could be a handy slideshow creator for the non-technical. But simplicity is really its own plus point, and if you know what you’re doing then something like Bolide Slideshow Creator is a far better choice.