Section 9.3. Instant Slideshows | iLife 05: The Missing Manual

9.3. Instant Slideshows

An instant slideshow, for the purposes of this book, is one that you begin by clicking the triangular Play button beneath the Source list without the Option key. It makes the Slideshow dialog box appear, so that you can make a few quick changes to the slideshow settings. (Slide selection and slide sequence, as described in the previous paragraphs, work the same way.)

The Slideshow dialog box has two panelsSettings and Musicas shown in Figure 9-2. In iPhoto 5, you have more ways than ever to customize your slideshow:

9.3.1.

9.3.1.1. Transitions

In iPhoto 4, you were offered a mere four types of transition effects between slidesfor example, the crossfade or dissolve , in which one slide gradually fades away as the next "fades in" to take its place. These days, you have a choice of 13 transition effects:

None . An abrupt switch, or simple cut, to the following image.
Cube . Imagine that your photos are pasted to the sides of a box that rotates to reveal the next one. If you've ever used the Fast User Switching feature introduced in Mac OS 10.3, you've got the idea.
Dissolve . This classic crossfade should be familiar to users of previous versions of iPhoto or the screen saver feature in Mac OS X.
Droplet . New in iPhoto 5, this wild effect resembles animated, concentric ripples expanding from the center of a pondexcept that a new image forms as the ripples spread.
Fade Through Black . Here's another new oneand an incredibly useful one to boot. After each slide has strutted and fretted its time upon the stage, the screen fades momentarily to black before the next one fades into view. The effect is simple and clean, like an old-fashioned living-room slideshow. Along with Dissolve, you should consider this effect one of the most natural and least distracting choices.
Flip . The first photo seems to flip around, revealing the second photo pasted onto its back.
Mosaic Flip Large, Mosaic Flip Small . The screen is divided into several squares, each of which rotates in turn to reveal part of the new image, like puzzle pieces turning over. (The two options refer to two sizes of the puzzle pieces.)
Page Flip . Apple's just showing off here. The first photo's lower-right corner actually peels up like a sheet of paper, revealing the next photo "page" beneath it.
Push, Reveal, Wipe . Three variations of "new image sweeping onto the screen." In Push, Photo A gets shoved off the other side of the screen as Photo B slides on. In Reveal, Photo A slides off, revealing a stationary Photo B. And in Wipe, Photo A gets covered up as Photo B slides on.
Twirl . Photo A literally spins, furiously, shrinking to a tiny dot in the middle of the screenand then Photo B spins onscreen from that spot. The whole thing feels a little like the spinning-newspaper effect used to signify breaking news in old black-and-white movies.

In most cases, choosing a transition effect makes two additional controls "light up" just below the pop-up menu:

Direction . Determines the direction the new image enters from. Choose Right to Left, Top to Bottom, or vice versa in both cases. (Most people find left to right the most comfortable way to experience a transition, but a slow top-to-bottom wipe is pleasant, too.)
Speed . Move the slider to the right for a speedy transition, or to the left for a leisurely one. Take into account your Timing setting, described below. The less time your photo is onscreen, the better off you are with a fast transition, so that your audience has time to see the picture before the next transition starts. However, moving the Speed slider all the way to the right produces a joltingly fast change.

Figure 9-2. The Slideshow dialog box is where you set slideshow timing for each show. You can set it to go as fast as 1 second per slide, or bump the number up to 60 seconds each for a very leisurely presentation. (You can type a number larger than 60 in the "Play each slide for" field, but iPhoto will ignore you. It refuses to spend any more than one minute on each shot, no matter how good a photographer you are.)
Using the pop-up menus and Speed slider at the top of this dialog box, you can choose from five transition effects and decide how quickly you want them to go by.

9.3.2. Slide Timing

If left to its own devices, iPhoto advances through your pictures at the rate of one photo every two seconds. If that seems too brisk or too slow, you can simply change the rate. In the Slideshow dialog box, use the "Play each slide for __ seconds" controls to specify a different interval, as shown in Figure 9-2.

Tip: You can also adjust the speed during the slideshow, just by pressing the up or down arrow keys. Behind the scenes, iPhoto adjusts the number of seconds in the Slideshow dialog box accordingly .

9.3.3. Shuffle Slide Order

An iPhoto slideshow normally displays your pictures in the order they appear in the photo-viewing area. But if you'd like to add a dash of surprise and spontaneity to the proceedings , turn on the "Shuffle slide order" checkbox. iPhoto will then shuffle the pictures into whatever order it pleases.

9.3.4. Repeat Slideshow

When iPhoto is done running through all your photos in a slideshow, it ordinarily starts playing the whole sequence from the beginning again. If you want your photos to play just once through, turn off the "Repeat slideshow" checkbox.

9.3.5. Scale Photos to Fill Screen

If any photos in your slideshow don't match your screen's proportions , you may want to turn on "Scale photos to fill screen." For example, if your slideshow contains photos in portrait orientationthat is, pictures taken with the camera rotatediPhoto fills up the unused screen space on each side with vertical black bars.

Turning on "Scale photos" makes iPhoto enlarge the picture so much that it completely fills the screen. This solution, however, comes at a cost: Now the top and bottom of the picture are lost beyond the edges of the monitor.

When the middle of the picture is the most important part, this option works fine. If the black bars bother you, the only other alternative is to crop the odd- sized pictures in the slideshow album so that they match your monitor's shape. (See "Cropping" on Section 8.5.)

UP TO SPEED
How Big Is My Monitor?

To know if your photos are large enough to be displayed distortion-free on your monitor, you first must know how many pixels it takes to fill your screen.

And to know that, you need to know your screen's resolution. Choose System Preferences, and open the Displays panel. In the Resolutions list, youll find all the resolutions that your monitor can handle, with the current resolution highlighted. If the selection says, for example, 1024 x 768, you know that photos must be at least 1024 pixels by 768 pixels to fill your screen without iPhoto having to stretch them to fit.

Note: This option doesn't mean "Enlarge smaller photos to fill the screen"; iPhoto always does that. This option affects only photos whose proportions don't match the screen.

9.3.6. Automatic Ken Burns Effect

Apple first introduced what it calls the "Ken Burns effect" in iMovie, not iPhoto. It's a special effect designed to address the core problem associated with using still photos in a movie: namely, that they're still ! They just sit there without motion or sound, wasting much of the dynamic potential of video.

And now your own humble slideshows can have that graceful , animated, fluid Ken Burns touch. No photo ever just sits there motionless on the screen. Instead, each one flies gracefully inward or outward, sliding and zooming.

9.3.7. Show Titles

Every photo in your collection can have a namea title, in other words. If you turn on this option, iPhoto superimposes each photo's title during the slideshow in a small white-on-black box in the upper-left corner of the screen.

Needless to say, the cryptic file names created by your digital camera (IMG00034. JPG) usually don't add much to your slideshow. But if you've taken the time to give your photos helpful, explanatory names ("My dog age 3 mos"), then by all means turn on the "Show titles" checkbox.

WORKAROUND WORKSHOP
Small Photos, Big Show

You can't control the size of your pictures as they appear during a slideshow, as they always fill the screen. To ensure that the results look professional, you must make sure all your photos are sized to fill the screen properly, as mentioned earlier in this chapter.

But what if you're stuck with photos that simply aren't big enough? Suppose you're charged with putting together a slideshow for the family reunion, and the only pictures you have of Uncle Rodney happen to be scanned photos that are only 640 x 480 pixels?

You can't cut Rodney out of the slideshow, but at the same time, you know Aunt Lois won't take kindly to having her husband appear onscreen hideously distorted . ("Why does Rod look so jagged?" you can imagine her saying. "What did you do to him?") Here's one simple way to display smaller photos in a slideshow and keep everyone happy:

Using a program like GraphicConverter or Photoshop Elements, create a new document that's exactly the right size for your screen. If your monitor's set to 1024 x 768 pixels, create a document that's 1024 x 768 pixels. Fill the background of the blank document so that it's black, to match the black between slides. (Actually, you can use whatever background you like.)

Now open the small photo that you want to include in your slideshow. Paste a copy of it into the center of your blank document. Save the results and then import the image file into iPhoto.

You now have a new picture, perfectly sized for your slideshow. Your small photo will appear onscreen at the proper size, with a black border around it. No, the photo won't fill the screen, but at least it will appear just as clear and distortion-free as the larger photos.

9.3.8. Show My Ratings

As described on Section 7.14, you can differentiate your stunning award-winners from the photographic dogs by adding ratings to each, on a one-to-five-star scale. If you turn on this option, iPhoto superimposes a small ratings bar on the bottom of each slideshow picture. (Unfortunately, you can't change the rating using this mini-bar, since it's for display purposes only. Of course, a quick mouse wiggle summons the full-blown control bar, complete with its own star-rating panel that you can change.)

Note: The control bar and the star-rating panel occupy the same space near the bottom of the slideshow "canvas," so they can't both be onscreen at the same time. That's why the "Show my ratings" checkbox is grayed out whenever "Show slideshow controls" is turned on.

9.3.9. Show Slideshow Controls

You can always summon iPhoto's new onscreen control bar by twitching the mouse during a slideshow; then, if a few seconds go by without any mouse activity, the bar politely fades away again.

If you turn on "Display slideshow controls," however, then the control bar appears automatically every time this slideshow beginsno mouse wiggling requiredand remains onscreen all the time.

9.3.10. iTunes: The Soundtrack Store

Perhaps more than any other single element, music transforms a slideshow, turning your ordinary photos into a cinematic event. When you pair the right music with the right pictures, you do more than just show off your photos; you create a mood that can stir the emotions of your entire audience. So if you really want your friends and family to be transfixed by your photos, add a soundtrack.

That's especially easy if, like many Mac OS X fans, you've assembled a collection of your favorite music in iTunes. For the background music of an iPhoto slideshow, you have the choice of an individual song from your iTunes Library or an entire playlist . Gone are the days of listening to the same tune repeating over and over again during a lengthy slideshowa sure way to go quietly insane (unless, of course, you really like that song).

The possibilities of this new feature are endless, especially combined with iPhoto's smart albums feature. You can create a smart album that contains, say, only photos of your kids taken in December, and give it a soundtrack composed of holiday tunes, created effortlessly using a smart playlist in iTunes. Instant holiday slideshow!

Your first iPhoto slideshow is born with a ready-to-use soundtrackJ. S. Bach's Minuet in G. In fact, Apple sends iPhoto to you equipped with two Bach classicsthe Minuet in G and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring . They're listed in the Sample Music category.

Not to knock Bach, but it's fortunate that you're not limited to two of his greatest hits. To switch to a soundtrack of your own choosing, click the Music button at the top of the Slideshow dialog box (Figure 9-3). If you use iTunes, every track in your iTunes Library automatically appears here. You can search and sort through your songs and playlists, just as though you were in iTunes itself.

To get started, click the Music button near the top of the Slideshow dialog box. As shown in Figure 9-3, a folder called Sample Music appears at the top, containing the two Bach pieces mentioned above. If you have songs of your own in iTunes, click the Library icon to access them (this option is grayed out if you don't have any music files in iTunes).

Figure 9-3. The Music tab of the Slideshow dialog box lets you choose a playlist (or your entire iTunes Library). By clicking the column headings, you can sort the list by Song, Artist, or Time. You can also use the Search box, as shown here, to pinpoint an individual song.
If you have a long slideshow, use the list to choose an iTunes playlist rather than an individual song. iTunes will repeat the song (or playlist) for as long as your slideshow lasts.

Your iTunes playlists appear on this menu, too. (For iTunes songs, a playlist represents what an album is in iPhoto: a hand-picked subset of the larger collection.) In other words, you can use this list either to select an entire playlist to use as your soundtrack, or to call up a playlist for the purpose of listing the individual songs in it, thereby narrowing your search for the one song you seek.

To listen to a song before committing to it as a soundtrack, click its name in the list and then click the triangular Play button. (Click the same button, darkened during playback, when you've heard enough.)
To use an entire playlist as a soundtrack for your slideshow, select it from the list. At slideshow time, iPhoto will begin the slideshow with the first tune in the playlist and continue through all the songs in the list before starting over.
To use an individual song as a soundtrack, click its name in the list. That song will now loop continuously for the duration of the slideshow.
Rather than scroll through a huge list, you can locate the tracks you want by using the capsule -shaped Search field below the song list. Click in the Search field, and then type a word (or part of a word) to filter your list. iPhoto searches the Artist, Song, and Album fields of the iTunes Library and displays only the matching entries. To clear the search and view your whole list again, click the X in the search field.
Click one of the three headersArtist, Song, or Timeto sort the iTunes music list alphabetically by that header.
You can also change the arrangement of the three columns by grabbing the headers and dragging them into a different order.

Once you've settled on (and clicked) an appropriate musical soundtrack for the currently selected album, click Save Settings (to memorize that choice without starting the slideshow) or Play (to begin the slideshow right now). From now on, that song or playlist will play whenever you run a slideshow from that album. (It also becomes the proposed soundtrack for any new slideshows you create.)

Alternatively, if you decide you don't want any music to play, turn off the "Play music during slideshow" checkbox above the list.

Note: You can select multiple songs from the song list in the Slideshow dialog box, using the Shift-click and

-click keystrokes that work in so many Mac dialog boxes. Keep in mind, though, that iPhoto will play back only the last one you click. If you have in mind a group of several songs that would make a perfect backdrop for your slideshow, the solution is to create a new playlist in iTunes, taking care to drag into it the desired songs from your Music Library, in the order that you want them to play. Switch back to iPhoto, and choose that playlist from the pop-up menu in the Slideshow dialog box (see Figure 9-3).

9.3.11. Different Shows, Different Albums

You can save different slideshow settings for each icon in your Source list.

To save settings for a specific photo album, for example, first choose the album from the Source list, then click the Slideshow icon in the lower pane of the iPhoto window to open the Slideshow dialog box. Pick the speed, order, repeat, and music settings you want, then click Save Settings. The settings you saved will automatically kick in each time you launch a slideshow from that album.