Photodex
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, Digital imaging |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Defunct | January 31, 2020 |
| Headquarters | Austin , United States |
| Products | ProShow Gold, ProShow Producer, ProShow Web |
Photodex was a privately held software firm located in Austin, Texas, that specialized in the digital imaging sector through its leading ProShow product range—software designed for creating photo slideshows. Established in 1987, the company discontinued its operations and terminated its servers on January 31, 2020.
In 1991, Photodex introduced GDS (Graphic Display System), one of the earliest consumer-oriented slideshow applications. During the mid-1990s, the company concentrated on CompuPic, a photo organization tool that incorporated slideshow capabilities. The ProShow product line was launched in 2002 with a focus on slideshow production.
Products
The primary products offered by Photodex comprised the ProShow lineup: ProShow Gold, ProShow Producer, and ProShow Web.
ProShow Gold
Designed for consumers assembling slideshows from images, videos, and audio tracks, ProShow Gold provided customizable slide styles, transitions, and motion effects such as the Ken Burns Effect. It allowed users to burn content onto CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs and supported exporting to formats like MPEG, QuickTime, Flash Video, as well as direct uploads to Facebook, Vimeo, and YouTube.
In 2006, USA Today praised ProShow Gold as “the best program for mixing pictures and video clips,” and it received the Editors' Choice award for slideshow software from PC Magazine.
ProShow Producer
Aimed at professional users, ProShow Producer offered advanced features including keyframing, masking techniques, and various adjustment effects. It supported disc burning for CD, DVD, and Blu-ray media and could export slideshows as Windows executable files (.exe) along with multiple video formats such as MPEG, HTML5 video, QuickTime, Flash Video, plus sharing options for Facebook, Vimeo, and YouTube.
The software included a Wizard feature that allowed novices to generate slideshows automatically before applying further customizations. This functionality simplified sharing content on major platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
In 2013, ProShow Producer earned a 5-star evaluation from FileCluster.com.
ProShow Web
ProShow Web served as an online service enabling users to produce video slideshows using photos, video clips, and music. Finished presentations could be shared directly on social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube or downloaded for offline viewing.