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Totally Rad Actions are 'actions' that you can only use in Photoshop CS2 or higher.  You import your photo and click 'play' in your action box and within seconds your photo will have the color effect enhancements that Doug and Chenin Boutwell uses on a daily basis.  I feel that the Boutwell's are one of the top wedding photographers that is in the wedding industry and has one of the coolest photos around.  You can check they're Wedding Photography website at www.boutwellstudio.com.

You will receive 46 actions for your photoshop.  My favorite action is the 'pro retouch' which allows me to smooth out people's skin to hide their blemishes, pimples, wrinkles and any other marks.  My clients are always thrilled to see how much younger they look when they see the photos.  The user can also combine multiple actions to get their unique style.  Combining actions is highly recommended and some combination effect can be seen at Totally Rad Actions website.  

The actions are super easy to use.  After pressing the action button to create the effect, you just brush in the mask to finalize the effect.  Some actions don't even need anymore work than simply clicking the 'play button'.  They provide video tutorials for those who have no idea how to use Photoshop.  In the competitive world of photography business, it is amazing to see photographers sharing their best work to the world.  Totally Rad Actions is my personal secret weapon.  Here is an example why all wedding photographers should get it.

This is the before photo.

This is the after Totally Rad Actions photo.  

You can clearly see the dramatic effect comparison from using the actions.  They also have a forum for photographers to share their own photos with effects and ideas.  I highly recommend them although my selfish side would want to keep them for myself.  You can check them out by clicking the banner below.

Totally Rad Actions Review  | Wedding Vendors Directory

Showit Web 2.6 is a must have for all Wedding Photographers.  Showit Web is a stand alone software that allows the user to create a flash based slide show with it's own HTML webpage for clients to view.  It has one of the fastest streaming ability so that the viewers don't have to wait around too long to watch the slide show.  It has many cool features and at a price of $199 for the pro version, it's worth every penny.

Showit Web is very easy to use.  One of the menu that's shown above allows the user to add the title, subtitle and a text with a link to your portfolio webpage.  You can control the appearance color and add your own logo on top of the webpage.

After importing your images to Showit Web, the user may rearrange the orders by simply dragging the images around.  It imports in alphabetical order and not chronological so you have to rename the images if you don't want to rearrange them in this menu.  David Jay and the company of Showit understands this issue and I'm pretty sure this will be solved in future updates.  Also, as you can see, you can click onto each images and place the red X to tell the program that is where you want to ken burns effect to focus on.  For those who might not know, ken burn's effect is another pretty word for the in and out movement of images.  

The user may than manually readjust the ken burns effect for more dramatic movements and control the type and length of transitions.   I personally leave this alone.  Showit Web does a great job of animating the movements where it's not too dramatic or too slow.

Here is what separates Showit Web from the rest of the slide show software.  This menu is where the user can create every image transition to the beat of the music.  If done manually with other softwares, it can take hours, painstakingly creating transitions in the timeline with the beat of the music.  Here's how Showit Web does it.  Import your favorite music.  Click record and as the song is playing in real time, click the space bar at every beat of the music that you like.  Showit web will record this.  After, click 'apply' and your slide show will play with the each images transitioning to the beat of the music.  How cool is that!  It also has it's own fully licensed music with the beats recorded for even faster method of creating your slide show.

The user can than publish this into the computer but must manullay be uploaded to the server via FTP program.  It will also give you codes to be used in your myspace or blog as well.

Conclusion:  Showit Web is so far my favorite slide show program.  It is native to both PC and Mac users.  It takes short time to create a slide show in it's own HTML webpage and the only software that can create the slides to the sound of the music with ease.  After the slide show is finished, it will go into thumbnail mode which the viewer can look through the images indivdually.  It is very user friendly and the support that you receive from the Showit company is very responsive.  The big downfall is that it doesn't have the ability to create a DVD out of it but in replace, you can create a 'Showit DVD' account with the Showit company and the user can order the DVD after finishing watching the slide show online.  Showit will create an attractive DVD case and mail them directly to the client.  I have heard of third party softwares that allows you to export the slide show to Proshow and then use that software to create a DVD.  The sad news is Proshow does not support Mac users.  Overall, Showit Web is a must have for all Wedding Photographers.  Go to www.showitfast.com for more details. Click Here to see a sample of the slideshow in action.