Well, I have found the answer to my own questions (I was too impatient). Here is how to do it, for those who may want to know...
1) I found when I selected several imported photos and right clicked on any one of them I had a create slidshow option in the context menu. Following on from here I could set the timeout for the image and its transition (applied to all selected images for the slideshow).
2) Now the only option for the transition is the default cross fade. You can change the default transition by going into the transition selection menu (you will have to go back to your project for this) and right click on the transition of your choice and click "set as default transition" in the context menu. Now go back to step one in the guide and you will see that the transtition is now the one you have set as default.
You can cary this on throughout the project and of course put in video where you like too.
I hope this helps someone looking to do the same thing. From my 30 minutes of experience so far of this software, I have found it to be the easiest, and most powerful video editing program I have used to date. I have tested the true video editing side as well as the picture slideshow side and find it to be very good. Well worth the money!
