I have just had a far too long dialogue with Tech support about MF 5 and 6.
Issue the slideshows now only have a black background around the slides. This is avoidable but you need to rework all your images into a custom template or "large border" to loose the black.
The lack of the custom self tile background (only now in MF 4 ) for the slideshows is a real pain. But I have had to find a work around to lose the black background on the slideshow. I have set each image into a new custom background canvas using PhotoImpact 12 (or 11 )
I had to develop a template in PhotoImpact 12 and this can be done and if you set up a placeholder and save the file in image format to a .ufp file.
Now the tricky part is what size to make the template canvas I have found by experiment that for 16:9 PAL DVD format you need an image canvas of some 2200 x 1400 pixels. This has worked for me and I thought anyone else may be having the same issues. Big step back to loose the custom background self tile for MF 5 and 6 though.
I can elaborate on how to make a template but the help files are Ok and just follow the procedure. When you have made the large images you can add all the special effects you like from PhotoImpact 12 (or11). These are far in advance of MF 5 and 6 though and if you like to keep it simple then you can just use the solid colours etc
Hope this helps and saves you guys time in trying to find the missing background function in MF5 and 6
Best
M