Slideshow software that scans folders
 

Not sure if this is entirely a photography based question but I thought I'd have better luck in here than in the Computers forum since this group would deal more with something in this realm.

I'm looking to find a piece of software (freeware or reasonably priced) that will "watch" a folder and display the images in this folder (randomly or otherwise - doesn't really matter) as a slideshow. My Google-Fu has turned up a lot of apps that will do a slideshow but you have to pre-select the files you want to display.

What I was wanting to do was during a wedding reception, have pictures projected onto a screen via a laptop, and guests would be providing content throughout the evening to me. What I'd like to do is dump all these files as I get them into a folder, and the app would display them without me having to stop the slideshow and re-select the images to have them display.

Anyone know of something that would do the trick?

How would the guests get you the photo's?

I'll be projecting off a laptop so I'll have various micro USB and iPhone cables connected to it so we can pull pictures off the phone.

The easiest way would be to set the projector as a secondary screen (set it to "extend" not "duplicate" so the projector won't show any icons/taskbar/the folders you're working with) and use the automatic Windows 7 desktop background slideshow setting. Set it to shuffle and shorten the timer down to whatever you like, point it to a folder for the wedding and as people give you photos dump them into the folder. Windows will automatically pick up on new pictures added to the folder and add them into the mix.

As a side note if you're going to be having a lot of people plugging devices in be sure to make a full backup of your computer first, you never know if someone's going to unknowingly give you a drive with viruses.

Thanks underscore. I might have to load Windows 7 on my laptop then. I've currently got Windows 8.1 on there and it too looks like it works off a selection of pictures. (well at least it looks that way when I select my folder and it displays my pictures in the folder with check marks next to each one)

I'm not too worried about the laptop since I really only use it for travelling. I can reformat and reinstall it after I'm done with it.

Try it in Windows 8.1 first, that sounds like how Windows 7 works but if you hit "select all" and hit OK it will automatically add and "check" new photos added to the folder. I tested it with 7 this morning and that's how it worked so I'd guess 8.1 is the same.