Best method to create a photo slideshow?

txtchr

txtchr


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While I am no pro, I am not an amateur. But, I have a task before me that has me sort of stumped as to where to begin.

I need to create a photo slideshow (still shots only will be used, no videos) for a wedding rehearsal dinner. Having these commercially prepared is quite expensive.

Right now I'm at the point that I'm editing the photos that have been scanned in by the bride's mother. Many of the photos are of the couple when they were youngsters (pre-digital camera era), so the photos need to be touched up quite a bit.

I have a MacBook Pro with iMovie and iDVD installed (I've used neither). I also have Adobe CS5, and am very proficient at Photoshop. I've made still photo slideshows for the web (going back to the day when Image Ready was part of the Adobe Suite and up to now) that I've saved both as .swf and .gif files. But that's been for websites, never for a DVD, which is what this format ultimately will need to be in order to run at the affair.

I also have Microsoft Office 2011. I know PowerPoint very well and know you can do some very crafty stuff with that program, but I've rarely worked with PP 2011 (only the 2003 and 2007 versions in Win format since I'm not a PP lover). We may or may not want music coupled with this show, since we may be playing it through a dinner, and that would be kind of distracting.

I'm going to have a minimum of 100 photos to use. I'd like some slides to have one photo and others to have multiple photos, and I'd like the option to insert text. I'd also like to choose my own background and borders around the photos.

Has anyone ever done this before? Suggestions? The wedding is this summer, so I do have some time. Thanks for any guidance.
 
CrimsonRequiem

CrimsonRequiem


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txtchr said:
While I am no pro, I am not an amateur. But, I have a task before me that has me sort of stumped as to where to begin.

I need to create a photo slideshow (still shots only will be used, no videos) for a wedding rehearsal dinner. Having these commercially prepared is quite expensive.

Right now I'm at the point that I'm editing the photos that have been scanned in by the bride's mother. Many of the photos are of the couple when they were youngsters (pre-digital camera era), so the photos need to be touched up quite a bit.

I have a MacBook Pro with iMovie and iDVD installed (I've used neither). I also have Adobe CS5, and am very proficient at Photoshop. I've made still photo slideshows for the web (going back to the day when Image Ready was part of the Adobe Suite and up to now) that I've saved both as .swf and .gif files. But that's been for websites, never for a DVD, which is what this format ultimately will need to be in order to run at the affair.

I also have Microsoft Office 2011. I know PowerPoint very well and know you can do some very crafty stuff with that program, but I've rarely worked with PP 2011 (only the 2003 and 2007 versions in Win format since I'm not a PP lover). We may or may not want music coupled with this show, since we may be playing it through a dinner, and that would be kind of distracting.

I'm going to have a minimum of 100 photos to use. I'd like some slides to have one photo and others to have multiple photos, and I'd like the option to insert text. I'd also like to choose my own background and borders around the photos.

Has anyone ever done this before? Suggestions? The wedding is this summer, so I do have some time. Thanks for any guidance.
Click to expand...

You can use iPhoto or iMovie to make the sideshow.
 
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txtchr

txtchr


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Since I've never really used either, which would be the better option?

I watched some tutorials on iMovie, and while I loved the results, it seemed that it was primarily aimed at video. It can be used for still shots only?

I was leaning towards figuring out iMovie, so you've kind of moved me in that direction. I did like the fact that it could be saved directly to a DVD and music could be added if you decided to include that.

Photos don't need to be saved in any particular folder, do they? I have them saved in separate folders in my Documents library now. Again, any time I need to do photo editing, I automatically open them up in Photoshop, so I don't think I've ever launched iPhoto on this machine.
 
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chas_m

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1. Load the edited photos into iPhoto.
2. Make incredibly beautiful slide show. Here's a tutorial.
3. Run directly from your Mac hooked to a projector for best results. You can also export the slideshow as a movie, edid it in iMovie, and burn to DVD.
 
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txtchr

txtchr


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Thanks for the help. Appreciate it. Once I get all of these photos edited, I'll get to working on the show. In the meantime, I'll be watching some tutorials!
 
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Easier than that

1) Put all the photos in one folder.
2) Open "Preview" from the task bar
3) Choose "Open" from the file menu, navigate to the folder with the photos.
4) Choose "Slideshow" from the bottom of the "view" menu.
Done.
 
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txtchr

txtchr


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Thanks for the guidance in starting this project. I've got all of my photos assembled (slightly over 200 of them) and have begun constructing a slideshow in iMovie. I have about one-third of my photos in the project and then will begin making it look "pretty."

All is going well, and I've figured out iMovie pretty well thus far. I'm using no theme, as I'd like to apply my own transitions between photos and I like the flexibility that iMovie allows you when doing this.

However, I'm having some issues with insertion of text on the separator slides. Most of the text slides I've chosen are the centered black slide that have the title and subtitle available. Since I'm only using one line that's short, it doesn't seem to be an issue if I have a few more characters (in other words, it wraps and extends the text box).

However, for a few of the slides I've chosen the "Soft Edge" slide option. There appears to be a 27 character limit on those slides? I cannot for the life of me determine how to adjust the size of the font or the size of the text box to even accommodate one or two more characters.

I'm using iMove 11. I've done multiple searches on the internet to attempt to figure this out and have gone nowhere. I like this particular slide effect, but can't figure out how to fit just a few more characters in the box. Can anyone help me out? I'm not talking about a whole bunch of text here -- just a few more characters.

Thanks.
 
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dphershman


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Since you're an expert in Photoshop you really ought to check out Lightroom. The processing of photos in Lightroom is identical to PS and there's options for large scale outputs of slideshows and even books if you like. I used to use PS for everything, now I routinely do all my processing in LR.
 

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