We've all seen them, those cute little slideshow type presentations of people's photographs that run on special photo CD players. But do you really need all that to make your own digital photo entertainment? The answer is no....well, almost always no.

When they first caught the interest of the public, photo CDs were created by specific company software that would only play on their corresponding machines. While that was great revenue for the brand name photo corporations, consumers were not pleased, and before anyone knew it, DVD players were advertised as having the capability to play back jpeg images. Today, at least three-quarters of DVD players have that capacity, and so do personal PCs.

The bad news? It does usually still take some kind of software to convert, crop, touch up, and arrange your photos. But it's not all bad news, because there are tons of this software available, with all kinds of functions that allow you to get as creative as you want, and make some great entertainment for family and friends.

The type of software you choose to create a photo CD, will depend on your skill level with the computer and associated programs. For low level users, your best bet is a program that comes with templates that make it simple to make fonts, frames for photos, transitions from one picture to the next, and an opening and closing for your presentation.

This can be a really fun project, particularly for special occasions like a 50th anniversary, or birthday, since many software programs not only provide the tools to enhance your images, but to add such extras as music, conversation balloons, captions, and clipart.

When you're done, you'll be able to take that basic CD and copy it for anyone who wants to enjoy your work, over and over.