What do you use to make your Menu's?

[Afterlife]

Just curious to hear what people are using.

I use Photoshop primarily for backgrounds etc, but am looking for something to speed up the process. When I used DVD-Lab Pro I enjoyed the auto creation of a chapter menu where I could drag and drop a still from the preview, or make it a motion preview. Seeing as I use DVD Maestro though its DVD Menus are less user friendly and I'm basically looking for a way to make quality looking Still menus faster.

I was looking at DVD Menu Studio by Media Chance as it exports directly to Maestro, though I didnt find it to be a great program.

So if anyone has any recommendations id love to hear them, maybe I will start a poll once I see enough programs creep up.

Thanks!

[guns1inger]

For still menus I create in Photoshop and load them into DVD Lab Pro to author. I rarely if ever use any of the built in effects etc in DLP as I think they look pretty tacky.

For motion menus I use either Vegas or Fusion

[ozymango]

For quick motion menus, I love Ulead DVD Workshop; it'll handle Photoshop images plus pretty much anything else, and for "point and shoot" ease, this takes the cake.

But this can be a matter of personal taste -- I like pretty simple menus myself, and by the time I'm at that stage in my DVD creation I'm pretty tired out from all the editing and figuring out where I want chapters, so if I can drag n'drop at that point, you can bet I will.

You can make some pretty sweet menus this way, though, with disgustingly little effort. The only drawback is DVD Workshop is a chunk of change, I think $399, ouch, so if you're using it just for menus it might be price-y. But for me it's worth it because, again, by the time I get to the part where I want to turn my edited stuff into a DVD, I'm past exhausted and just want it DONE. So Workshop delivers in this regard.

[kyemeng]

I use Photoshop to create the background and then author the DVD using Tmpgenc DVD Author. Find it the fastest this way.

[Afterlife]

For those of you using Photoshop, are you creating buttons, text, frames and the overlays in photoshop as well? Or using your respective authoring program to do this after the background has been imported?

[lordsmurf]

You're sick and tired of archaic user interfaces. DVD-Lab and Maestro and kludgy. I feel the same way. This is why I use the equally-powerful Ulead DVD Workshop 2 for authoring.

All the objects I create in Photoshop or Premiere.

[Richie V]

I use a combination of Vegas, Photoshop / Paint Shop Pro, and DVDlab Pro. I like making my menus fancy with looped cells and 'if' commands and all that jazz.