Special Image Player

With the help of Special Image Player you can seamlessly put together and play image slideshows on your computer. It offers support for several popular image extensions, namely JPG, JPEG, BMP, ICO, WMF and EMF.

Ad-supported tool with a simple interface

The installation procedure doesn't take a long time to finish. However, since it's ad-supported, the app offers to download and install third-party components that it doesn't actually need to work properly. These can be excluded to make a clean setup, though.
The user-friendly UI is represented by a normal window with a classical structure split into three main panes, dedicated to tinkering with settings regarding the transition, layout and images, respectively.

Customize image, transition and layout settings

You can begin by selecting a folder, since Special Image Player automatically loads all containing photos, as long as they're supported. The slideshow can be previewed in the main window, and you can make real-time changes regarding the display interval, photo placement (center, stretch or shrink, preserve aspect ratio), background image and position, along with frame width and color.
When it comes to the transitions, you can browse a list with numerous styles and pick one, make the pics change manually or automatically in consecutive or random order, as well as activate automatic progress control and tweak options concerning the step, interval, exact timing preservation, and separate thread.

Evaluation and conclusion

The software application worked smoothly during our tests, without triggering the operating system to hang, crash or display error messages. It had a good response time and minimal impact on computer performance, using low CPU and RAM. On the other hand, Special Image Player doesn't implement an option for exporting the slideshow to file, so you lose all changes when exiting it. Nevertheless, it serves its purpose and can be easily handled by anyone.