Photo manipulation

I was wondering if it is possible to do photo slideshows with PHP. Not simple ones but more complex ones with transitions and photo rotations and such. I would like to create a web page something like photobucket but have no idea how to do photo slideshows like they do. Could someone please point me in the right direction on how to do this? Thanks

PHP is server side so the page has to be reloaded for any changes to take affect. I would look into JavaScript, Ajax or Flash.