Magix Photo Story on CD & DVD 10 slideshow software

Unless you are good at emailing photos to friends or sharing them on Facebook, Flickr or other sites, they can disappear into the depths of your computer's hard disk, never to be seen again.

Magix' Photo Story allows users to take their photos and turn them into moving slideshows, complete with transitions, special effects, background music, titles and captions. These slideshows can be recorded to CD or DVD so that someone else can play them back on a PC or on TV using a DVD player.

Slideshows can be created from scratch by dragging and dropping individual photos or even folders full of photos onto the storyboard, which is a strip than runs along the bottom of the screen. They can be rearranged and rotated with the mouse and transitions between them may be added individually or for the entire show. You can then finish everything off with animated titles and captions. For more detailed work, there is also a timeline view that offers much finer control, similar to that found in a video-editing program.

When it comes to making a disc, you can add your own menu just as on a professional DVD. There are 23 editable menu styles and finished shows may be recorded on DVD, SVCD or miniDVD from within the program. Alternatively slideshows may be saved for addition to your website or published directly to Youtube, Flickr and – new in this version – Facebook.

If that sounds like hard work, the slideshow wizard will do pretty much everything for you, from choosing the initial aspect ratio (widescreen or not) and disc format to importing the photos and applying a style that includes settings for transitions, effects, titles and background music.

New features include exporting in several popular video formats, new special effects (which varied in quality), and smoother zooming and panning.

The program's look has been brushed up, and performance has improved, especially the speed at which it scans folders for photos. You will have to step up to the Deluxe version (£99) to be able to make Blu-ray discs but otherwise Photo Story 10 packs enough of a punch for most people.