AviaSlider is a very flexible and easy to use Image slideshow plugin for jQuery with a set of really unique transitions that were nver available before, as well as some basic transitions, so the slider will fit into every project.
It comes with an image preloader so the slider starts when images are ready to be shown. No clumsy animations with half loaded images. The slider also already comes with the famous prettyPhoto lightbox, but you are of course free to use any other.