In case you missed our previous newsletter, the new 2.0 version of ThumbGrid - the popular add-on component for SlideShowPro for Flash - is now available!

If you are an existing user of ThumbGrid, you can upgrade to ThumbGrid 2 for $15 (single user) or $75 (corporate) through your account center profile. If you purchased ThumbGrid anytime between April 17th and May 17th you are eligible for a free upgrade. Contact us to request one if applicable.

Existing users of ThumbGrid will be interested to know that this month we released a 2.0.1 update. The update improves the positioning of proportionally scaled thumbnails when "zoomed" on rollover, and now allows you to use different scale settings ("Crop to Fit" or "Proportional") for the Gallery and Album screens. Registered users of ThumbGrid 2 can download the 2.0.1 update through the account center.

In case you haven't heard, Adobe is about to release a notable 3.0 update to Lightroom, so we updated SlideShowPro for Lightroom with a new web gallery extension just for 3.0. The extension supports Lightroom 3's new (and vastly improved) watermark publishing system, and no longer disallows automatic slideshow playback in the work area when exporting slideshows. Lightroom 3 is available now as a public beta, but we recommend that most Lightroom users wait for the final 3.0 release.

Registered users of SlideShowPro for Lightroom can download the update through the Account Center.

Use Aperture for your photo management? If so, check out DirectorExport for Aperture, a plugin developed by SlideShowPro user Andrew Newdel that exports Aperture library content to one or more installations of SlideShowPro Director. The uploading takes place within Aperture, so you can update Director content without using a web browser or exporting images as an intermediary step. It’s simple to setup — just enter your Director API credentials found in the app’s “System Settings” screen. After verification, you can upload content to an existing album, or create a new album as part of the upload process. The plugin also respects embedded metadata in your photos, and can automatically publish titles/caption data if present.

Click here to download DirectorExport for Aperture

Over time we've been tweaking the formatting of this newsletter to improve its appearance in all email clients, but now — thanks to SendLabs — this newsletter's appearance should be much improved (especially for users of Outlook). SendLabs rebuilt our newsletter from the ground up, then tested it against nearly every available email client. Their assistance is much appreciated, and we recommend their services to anyone sending their own HTML emails. Check out SendLabs.com for more information about their services.

This month we're starting something new with user examples. Instead of picking ten examples and crowning one site as "Site of the month", we're now featuring the entire group as "Sites of the Month". We're making the change because it has become increasingly difficult (borderline impossible, actually) to feature just one site when every example uses different products to achieve different goals. Picking ten is hard enough! One thing won't change however -- we'll still bring you the most creative, interesting, and inspiring examples shared with us in the hope that it further inspires all SlideShowPro users to not only push our products to greater heights, but to succeed in creating exciting and original web destinations for audiences the world over.

SITES OF THE MONTH (MAY 2010):

aCurator Director API, Custom Flash	Cello & Maudru SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid, Director
Steven Seymour SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid, Director	Jordi Surroca SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid
Institute of Design SlideShowPro for Flash, Director	Low Profile SlideShowPro for Flash
Schwabel SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid, Director	NGPhoto SlideShowPro for Flash, Director
Clare Read SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid, Director	Istabsir SlideShowPro for Flash, ThumbGrid, Director

Want to submit your own site for next month's roundup? Click here to share it with us.