Fader

Hi @crosstherubicon!

Yes, you can do this even with the free version of our slider. At the dropdown list of the “Create slide” button:
https://smartslider3.helpscoutdocs.com/article/405-slide-manager#create
you should choose the “Create static slide” option. That will create a slide which won’t move while your regular slides will move under it. So you could put your text or heading layers into this slide and you could add regular slides to hold your images.

And you can choose “Fade” animation at the “Main animation” of the slider: