Installation
Installation for Photo Flash Maker Free is extremely quick with only three install windows (and no EULA) to sort through.
When you start the program you will see the “Main & Slideshow Wizard Windows”. Notice that you can easily disable the “Slideshow Wizard” (lower left corner) so that it does not appear each time you start the program.
This is what the “Main Window” looks like once you close the “Slideshow Wizard”.
Photo Flash Maker Free in Action
There are two ways to start creating your new flash slideshows…using the visible three step toolbar or by using the wizard. Using the three step toolbar will allow you to choose the “between photo” effects to suit your personal style. For our example we chose to use the wizard.
To get things started go to the “File Menu” and select “New Project From Wizard”…
You will be presented with the “Add Images to Slideshow Window” and can browse for the photos that you would like to use.
Once you have selected the photos that you would like to use click “Next”.
Choose the “Frame Style” that you like best and click “Next”. For our example we chose “Photo Only”…
The final part is to choose the names that you would like to use for the “swf & html files”. Once that is finished click the “Publish Now! Button”.
At this point you can choose to immediately view your files or wait until you have closed the wizard and then view them.
Here is the swf file opened directly in Firefox…
Followed by the html file with the flash file embedded. Notice the “advertisement-type listing” at the bottom…this is extremely easy to remove by editing the html file in Notepad (or your favorite text editor). See screenshot below for the exact text to remove.
The only drawback to using Photo Flash Maker Free is the momentary banner at the end of the slideshow…but it is a very small price to pay for such a nice file.
For those who would like to remove the textual “advertisement-type listing” at the bottom of the webpage here is the exact code that you will need to select and delete. Afterwards the webpage is clean and ready to go…
Menus
The menus for Photo Flash Maker Free are simple and straightforward. Here you can see the “File, View, & Photo Menus”…
And the “Music, Create, Preference, & Help Menus”.
Options
There are three parts to pay special attention to in the “General Options Area”:
You can delete the “Default URL” and leave it blank without any effect on your flash files It is recommended to deselect “Show Title on each photo” to keep your flash files looking clean (unless you want to label your photos) Make certain to set the JPEG quality to 100 to get the best looking result for your photos
Select the settings that best suit your needs for background music (if you are adding any to your files).
Make any background color and scale adjustments that you desire.
Conclusion
If you have been looking for a way to add some photo fun to your website, then Photo Flash Maker is definitely worth taking a look at.
Links
Download Photo Flash Maker Free (version 5.58) via Download.com, be careful not to accept bundled software offers.
