Review and Giveaway: Roxio Photoshow

Sharing all the photos for the My Life in Pictures challenge I'm taking part of this week, got me thinking more about ways to share my pictures quickly. While also in a nicer way than just attaching them to an email. It's all about presentation you know☺

A few weeks ago I was introduced to Roxio PictureShow, what is that you ask? It's an online application that enables users to make engaging, one-of-a-kind multimedia slideshows in minutes. Try it for free, check out the 3 year retrospective I did and previously posted for my daughter's birthday last month. Now see the PhotoShow I made using the premium service below. Be sure to turn on the sound for the music. ER helped choose it. She loves watching the ones I've made over and over and over...

With Roxio PictureShow you can:

Share your family's favorite stories with friends and relatives.
They'll feel like they were there! Roxio PhotoShow makes it simple to combine your favorite photos and video clips from birthdays, vacations, or any other occasion with fun stickers, animations, effects, and music to create one-of-a-kind online PhotoShows they're sure to love.
Your PhotoShow is so much more than pictures
There's a world of difference between a plain old “slideshow” and a PhotoShow! With just a click or two, the all new PhotoShow maker lets you add your choice of hundreds of music tracks, over 150 beautiful one-click styles, plus cool animated graphics and stickers. Add one of your own MP3s to your PhotoShow and give it the soundtrack you really want.

Create PhotoShows as you go
Want to share a PhotoShow of your Hawaiian vacation with friends back home…while you're still on the beach? No problem. Using the Blackberry mobile uploader, you can create and share shows directly from your phone! Or, from any internet connected computer, email your show or publish it to Time Warner Cable PhotoShow TV*

Share all your shows on your PhotoShow gallery page!
It's the place to share the stories of your life. Organize your shows by holidays, vacations, location or each family member. Choose who can see each show, and even allow viewers to browse and download photos from your shows!

Create PhotoShows even when you're offline
Your creativity shouldn't require an Internet connection. That's why your subscription to Roxio PhotoShow Service entitles you to the desktop version, too (Windows XP & Vista). Now online or offline you can create captivating PhotoShows to burn to DVD for TV playback, export as MPEG2, WMV, or save as MPEG4 for viewing on mobile devices.

Recently my account was upgraded to a premium account and I love the extra features! Now instead of being limited to 24 pictures per show I can have up to 400 and my personalized creations will be available online for my friends and family to view for as long as I'm a premium member. They won't expire in 30 days like in the free version and I can upload my own videos to add to my Roxio Photoshows too!
I am an avid scrapbooker and I love having personal control over how my memories are recorded. But I don't have enough time to keep up with my hobby these days. I still want unique, creative, and impressive ways to share my pictures and tell my stories for my family and friends. With a premium membership I get a lot more options to customize my PhotoShow! These are the features that really make a difference to me and are why I think Roxio PhotoShow is such a great service!

• Control the timing of each individual photo
• Access over 150 playback styles for every occasion versus 8,
• Get a lot more options for music tracks 440+ vs 40 and even use my own MP3 music files.
• Pick from 520+ animated stickers and sayings, that's a lot more than the 8 or so my daughter liked browsing through before! See what I mean in the picture above!
• Try 40+ title treatments to make each show different instead of 5+
• Add unique one of 65 borders to creatively "frame" your show instead of 6

You may have noticed I am a bit of a control freak and I like having so many choices! Those options are on top of many more like picking the style of your intro, these are really fun to play around with. Even things like the font for the captions can be adjusted as well as how the PhotoShow switches between pictures.

With a premium membership I also get access to great desktop software! This enables me to be able to:

• Burn PhotoShows to DVD for TV playback,
• Export PhotoShows to video files (MPEG2, WMV)
• Author PhotoShows while not connected to the Internet
• Create Shows without waiting for upload completion

Now I can burn to DVD and send my PhotoShows to Brad's grandparents or other family members who aren't as computer savvy as I am and I can still share my pictures and memories with them. I also love the idea of making a PhotoShow and then playing it during a celebration, like a special birthday. Wouldn't that be a fun thing to have going on in the background?

Buy It!
At $39.99 for a full year of premium service this is a great bargain to make, send, post, and burn your Roxio PhotoShows. I like all the features and how easy it is to add them. It's quick and simple once you get the hang of things and you get nice professional looking results that will capture your memories so you can revisit them for years!

Giveaway!
Win a year's subscription to Roxio PhotoShow! Think of all the events you can capture and send easily to family and friends. Everyone will be impressed with your PhotoShows!

To Enter:
Visit Roxio PhotoShow and then come and tell me what your favorite feature of the Roxio PhotoShow service is.

Additional Entries: {Leave an extra comment(s) for each extra entry.}

• Publicly follow my blog
• Follow me on Twitter, tweet about this giveaway, and leave me a link to your tweet
• Post about this giveaway on your blog and leave me a link to it.
• Get another extra entry if you post about this giveaway AND post a PhotoShow you've made in the post. Just be sure to leave an extra comment for it.
• Tell me what memory you'd like to preserve or share with a Roxio PhotoShow
• For 5 Extra Entries: Try it out, make a free Roxio PhotoShow and leave me the playback URL {or} forward the email you'll get from Roxio PhotoShow with the link in it, so I can check it out! YOU MUST leave five extra comments on this post to get them all. {You can email the link to me privately if you don't want to make it public}

Good Luck! Giveaway open now through Thursday August 20th a 12 midnight EST.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a Premium Membership to Roxio PhotoShow in return for trying the service out, reviewing it, and hosting this giveaway. No effort was made on the part of the sponsor to influence my opinions.