Review: PulpMotion - Multimedia Slideshows for Mac OS X
Update February 17, 2008: I finally managed to get this review back up on the web after thinkmac.net's sudden crash. The original date of publication was September 2, 2007.
Tired of iPhoto's bland slideshow videos? Aquafadas PulpMotion makes just those - and more. It makes video slideshow of
your photos, videos, and more, and the templates and settings lets you create with the wild abandon of a professional but for only $45 USD - that's about $4,455 less than usual. I had quite a bit of fun exploring — and waiting for — this program and its possibly nonexistent limits.
The first time I ran this, I was greeted with some helpful sticky notes that told me what to do. It's quite easy; here are the basic steps in more detail:
1. Click on the + button at
the bottom. Enter a name for your project.
2. Choose a template from
the list and click Create
3. Click on the button on the bottom right corner
until you see it say "Settings", at this point you
are in the Media mode
4. Choose what kind of media you want
5. Take your pictures, videos, etc. and add them to
the timeline at the bottom
6. Optionally, go to the Audio tab and drag a song over to the iTunes icon on the timeline to give your video some tunes
7. Click on the Update button
8. Click Play to preview
9. Go to File>Export and turn your project into a video to share
There are a lot of great templates. And once you get your hands on some user-made templates — all of them retrievable from within the program itself, so no website jumping or massive Desktop download clutter - you can make great stuff.
Here are some of the templates I found intriguing:
• Crayons: scan in some pictures of your kids or some pictures they made and show them off in (kiddish) style
• Daily News: a unique way of showing your most important images.
•Factory: simple yet elegant, it gives you a nice
starting point
•Movie Gallery: it looks like your iDVD menus, and
it plays movies with sound (unlike the menu)
•Scrapbook: so you don't have to make one yourself
•TimeMachine [sic]: for those of you who like Leopard: add some screenshots of the Finder and you can hayour very own practical joke.
You can drag in photos and video from the Finder, or
from within PulpMotion. In PulpMotion, you can use
iPhoto, Photo Booth, Aquafadas' own iDive (sort of
like iPhoto for videos) or (just added
support for) MemoryMiner as sources for your images and video. Note that PulpMotion separates images and video, so you'll have to click on some tabs to see the right type of media. 
Some templates have predefined slots that en-
hances certain parts of your movie. For example,
the "What I'd Take to the Moon" template lets you
have a custom background and an image for the
pilot of the little rocket in the slideshow. This feature
is useful for setting up more movie-like presenta-
tions of your photos, and gives your shows a bit of
originality.
The defaults can be boring. The button at the bot-
tom right switches between Media and Settings
mode. When it says one thing, you're at the other.
So in Settings mode, it says Media. This mode al-
lows you to change many things about your project.
The first things you should change are the name and description of
your project - the defaults are bland. You can change other 
things, such as timing, colors, and fonts. You can
use the Adjust to Music Length button in the Timing
section to make your project as long as your sound-
track. The Quality section can be used to change
the quality of the output images — but adjust not
with abandon: PulpMotion can get slow (see be-
low). Some of the templates have their own options:
for example, the Daily News template has a Page 
Layout section that can be used to change how the newspaper looks.
One of the other options allows you to hide the me-
dia name, which is just the filename. If you choose
to show the filenames, they may not look good to
you - especially if they're from iPhoto. You can re-
name the images from within the timeline, just like
in Finder, with the exception that it won't change the
actual filename.
Click to Enlarge
Just hit Command+I to open the Inspector, and do what you need. By the way — if you double-click an image in the timeline, you can crop and resize it from within PulpMotion. Unfortunately, you can't add effects to video or crop or resize them.
One interesting feature is Live Templates. Unlike
ordinary templates, you can use Live Templates
to add your own thing to the end result. With an
iSight or other video web camera attached, you
can film yourself from within PulpMotion.
After filling in some details, you get in position and hit the "Go Live!" button, PulpMotion goes into a full-screen mode. Read the instructions and hit the Record button. Let the header run, hit the UP key, and do what comes naturally. When you are done, just hit that Record button again. Your live recording is saved to the Desktop, from which you can drag directly into the Timeline. The News template is a great way for young broadcasters to get their future job going. There are convenient instructions when you go into a Live template. And yes, you can still put your images and videos in.
When you are finally done, it's time to preview. Click on the Update button, then wait for it to update, and wait, and wait, and wait... When it's done, hit the Play button to preview. Or check the Auto-Update box if you want to get an update each time you make a
major change or hit Play.
Once you are satisfied with your creation, hit that Export button or go to File>Export. You'll get a dialog of options for generating your final presentation:
• A normal QuickTime movie - Good for sending to other Mac or Windows users via email, but not optimized for much else.
• iPod/iPhone and Apple TV - These two options give you optimizations for said devices, as well as the ability to add to iTunes.
• iWeb - This automates the process of putting your work on the Internet, either as a video on an iWeb page or as a video podcast episode. Either way, you'll need an iWeb file already open. You'll need iLife.
• iDVD - This option makes your video part of your next DVD project. You'll need iLife.
• GarageBand - This option allows you to use iLife's music maker to add more audible pizzazz to your work.
• Mail - Makes it the perfect size for sending out to your friends.
• Player - Give your file to another PulpMotion user with the assurance that they won't touch it.
• Screensaver - Want to see your movie anytime you are not at your monitor? Go right ahead.
As for help, PulpMotion comes with the sticky notes (hit Command+?) and an interactive Quick Start Guide that you can access from the Help Menu. It doesn't come with documentation; you can download a PDF from within the program. It is only about 50 pages, but it describes quite a bit about the program. The website even has a video!
Problem time!
First and foremost, a snail can beat PulpMotion in a race. If you have between 1 and 10 photos at low quality, it won't take very long. But a slideshow in reality can take quite a bit of time to prepare. It could also cause your computer to slow down — drastically. My iMac, with 1GB of memory, suffered; We also noticed an iMac Intel CoreDuo system with 2GB noticed a bit of slowdown as well. Also, some templates have a minimum and maximum amount
of media, and PulpMotion will warn you if you break these rules. You can only have one song per movie, which is also limiting for very large projects.
Fortunately, you can export to GarageBand, which gives you the ability to add more songs (and Apple Loops) to your project (given that the song is already exported, then just drag-and-drop).
Well, that’s it for this review. I won’t describe making your own templates (which is as powerful as Microsoft Word macros, but not as dangerous).