7.7. Slideshows and iDVD

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7.6. Slideshow Tips

The following guidelines will help you build impressive slideshows that truly show case your efforts as a digital photographer:

7.6.1. Picture Size

Choosing photos for your slideshow involves more than just picking the photos you like the best. You also have to make sure you've selected pictures that are the right size.

Why is the size so important? Because iPhoto always displays slideshow photos at full-screen dimensions and on today's monitors , that usually means at least 1024 x 768 pixels. If your photos are smaller than that, iPhoto stretches them to fill the screen, often with disastrous results. If you include a tiny 320 x 240 pixel camera phone snapshot in a slideshow, for example, the resulting image, blown up to more than 10 times its normal size, turns into a chunky , jaggy-edged mess (Figure 7-8).


Note: Although iPhoto blows up images to fill the screen, it always does so proportionately, maintaining each photo's vertical-to-horizontal aspect ratio. As a result, photos often appear with vertical bars at the left and right edges when viewed on long rectangular screens like the Apple Cinema Display, the 17-inch iMac or PowerBook, and so on. To eliminate this effect, see "Scale Photos to Fill Screen" on page 184.

Figure 7-8. Here's an example of what happens when a 320 x 240pixel photo ends up in a slideshow. Projected at full screen dimensions, a photo that looks great at its normal size becomes jaggy-edged and fuzzyunflattering to both subject and photographer. If you plan to use your photos in a slideshow, make sure your digital camera is set to capture pictures that are at least 1024 x 768 pixels.


7.6.1.1 Determining the size of your photos

If you're not sure whether your photos are big enough to be slide show material, iPhoto provides two easy ways to check their sizes:

  • Click a thumbnail in the photo-viewing area, and then look at the Size field in the Information pane. (If the Information pane isn't open , click the little ibutton beneath the Source list.) You'll see something like "1600 x 1200. "That's the width and height of the image, measured in pixels.

  • Select at humbnail and choose Photos Show Info, or press -I too pen the Show Info window. The width and height of the photo are the first two items listed in the Image section of the Photo pane.

  • As shown in Figure 7-8, very small photos are ugly when blown up to full-screen size. Very large ones look fine, but iPhoto takes longer to display them, and the crossfade transitions might not look smooth. For the best possible results, make your photos the same pixel size as your screen.

  • To whatever degree possible, stick with photos in landscape (horizontal) orientation, especially if you have a wide monitor screen. With portrait oriented (vertical) photos, iPhoto displays big black borders along the sides.

  • For similar reasons, try to stick with photos whose proportions roughly match your screen. If you have a traditionally shaped screen (iBook,12-inch PowerBook, PC monitor, and so on), use photos with a 4:3 width to height ratio, just as they came from the camera. However, If you have a wide screen monitor (Cinema Display,17-inch iMac G4, and so on), photos cropped to 6:4 proportions are a closer fit.


    Tip: If you don't have time to crop all your odd- sized or vertically oriented photos, consider using the "Scale photos" feature described on page 184. It makes your pictures fill the screen nicely , although you risk cutting off important elements (like heads and feet).
    FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
    Slideshow Smackdown: iPhoto vs. iMovie

    I've read that iMovie makes a great slideshow program, too. Supposedly, I can import my photos, add music, and play it all back, full-screen, with cool cross- dissolves , just like you're saying here. Which program should I use?

    iPhoto 5 has greatly diminished the gap, but the short answer is: iPhoto for convenience, iMovie for control.

    In iMovie, you can indeed import photos. Just as in iPhoto 5, you have individual control over their timing, application of the Ken Burns effect, and cross fades between them.

    But the music options are much more expansive in iMovie. Not only can you import music straight from a music CD (without having to use iTunes as an intermediary), but you can actually record a narration into a microphone as the slideshow plays. And, of course, you have a full range of title and credit-making and special-effects features at your disposal, too.

    Still, iPhoto has charms of its own. Creating a slideshow is much less work in iPhoto, for one thing. If you want a slideshow to loop endlesslyplaying on a laptop at somebody's wedding , for example, or at a trade showiPhoto is also a much better bet. (iMovie can't loop.)

    Remember, too, that iPhoto is beautifully integrated with your various albums. Whereas building an iMovie project is a serious, sit-down-and-work proposition that results in one polished slideshow, your Photo Library has as many different slideshows as you have albumsall ready to go at any time.


  • Preview images at full size before using them. You can't judge how sharp and bright an image is going to look based solely on the thumbnail.

  • Keep the timing brief when setting the playing speed may be just a few seconds per photo. Better to have your friends wanting to see more of each photo than to have them bored, mentally rearranging their sock drawers as they wait for the show to advance to the next image. Remember, you can always pause a slideshow if someone wants a longer look at one picture.

  • Give some thought to the order of your photos. An effective slideshow should tell a story. You might want to start with a photo that establishes a locationan overall shot of a park, for exampleand then follow it with closeups that reveal the details.

  • If your viewers fall in love with what you've shown them, you have four options: (a) save the slideshow as a QuickTime movie that you can email them or burn onto a CD for their at-home enjoyment (Chapter 11); (b) turn the show into an interactive DVD using Apple's iDVD software (see Chapter 12); (c) create a .Mac slideshow (page 238); or (d) make your admirers buy their own Macs.

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iPhoto 5. The Missing Manual
iPhoto 5. The Missing Manual
ISBN: 596100345
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 179

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