Section 11.1. Two Kinds of Slideshows | iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual

11.1. Two Kinds of Slideshows

Fortunately, iPhoto makes creating the movie as simple as creating the original show itself. You just have to know which buttons to click.

You may recall that, iPhoto 6 offers two different ways of creating a slideshow:

The instant slideshow . When you click the triangle at the bottom of the iPhoto window, iPhoto interviews you briefly so that you can specify background music and a slide-to-slide transition style, and then the show begins. Every picture stays on the screen for the same amount of time, and every slide uses the same transition and same Ken Burns effect, if you've applied one.

To export an instant slideshow, you begin by clicking an album icon in your Source list.
The saved slideshow . This technique gives you ridiculously complete control over the timing and transition effect of every individual slide in the show.

To export a saved slideshow, you begin by clicking its slideshow icon in the Source list.

The process of exporting these two slideshow types (instant and saved) is different, too; in fact, each approach has its own Export dialog box! This chapter covers both methods .

11.1.1. Instant vs. Saved Exported Files

There's no doubt that an exported saved slideshow is a spectacular experience. Once you've seen yours playing on a huge screen, complete with all of your stunning crossfades, panes, and zooms, you might wonder why anyone would bother with the far simpler, more primitive look that results when you export an instant slideshow.

Two words: file size .

Consider a typical 20-picture slideshow. If it's a saved slideshow, complete with fancy transitions, the resulting file weighs in at a whopping 44 megabytes when exported as a QuickTime movie. If it begins life as an instant slideshow instead, the same presentation is a svelte 3.4 megs.

Exported instant slideshows, therefore, are best when you intend to email the result or post it on the Web; its compact file size just shouts "portability."

Export saved slideshows are usually best when played back from a CD, DVD, or another hard drive. Those sophisticated motion graphics add considerable bulk to the size of the file.

You may find a difference in picture quality, too. For example, the Ken Burns effect takes its toll on the sharpness of your pictures (Figure 11-1). Overall, slideshows that you export from instant slideshows are sharper than those that begin as saved slideshows with motion graphics.

Note: Technically speaking, some of the differences in exported-slideshow quality have to do with the codec (compression scheme) that iPhoto uses for each type. When you export an instant slideshow, iPhoto uses the Photo-JPEG compressor; when you export a saved slideshow, it uses the MPEG-4 compressor. More on compressors later in this chapter.