7.1. About Slideshows When you run an iPhoto slideshow, your Mac presents the pictures in full-screen modeno windows , no menus , no borderswith your images filling every inch of the monitor. Professional transitions take you from one picture to the next , producing a smooth, cinematic effect. If you want, you can even add a musical soundtrack to accompany the presentation. The total effect is incredibly polished, yet creating a slideshow requires very little setup. You always begin by selecting the pictures you wantby clicking an album or a Library icon, for example. At this point, you can kick off a slideshow in three different ways, each one offering a different degree of instant gratification and flexibility: -
Option-click . Option-click the Play button (  ) at the bottom of the iPhoto window (see Figure 7-1). A moment later, your Mac's screen fades to black, and then the show begins. -
Instant . If you click the Play button without the Option key, you get the Slideshow dialog box shown in Figure 7-2. It lets you choose the music for the slideshow, adjust its speed, and make other settings. Only when you dismiss the dialog box by clicking the Play button does the show begin. -
Saved . In the early days of iPhoto, each album had its own associated slideshow settings. The album was, in essence, the container for the slideshow. That was a convenient approach, but not the most flexible. For example, it meant that if you wanted a slideshow that displayed only half the pictures in an album, you had to make a new album just for that purpose. It also meant that you couldn't create different slideshow versions of the same album's worth of photosa 2-seconds-per-shot version for neighbors, for example, and a 10-seconds-per-shot version for adoring grandparents. Figure 7-1. The quickest way to kick off a slideshow in iPhoto is to Option-click the Play button in the main iPhoto window, shown here by the cursor (and the helpful tooltip label). While there's no keyboard shortcut, you can hit any key except the arrow keys and the Space bar to stop a show once it's running.  Now, therefore, iPhoto offers something called a saved slideshow, an icon that appears in the Source list and is saved forever, independent of any album. It works a lot like an album in many ways. For example, the photos inside are only "pointers" to the real photos in the Library, and you can drag them into any order you like. On the other hand, unlike an album, a saved slideshow contains special advanced controls for building a really sophisticated slideshow. This chapter covers each of these three slideshow techniques in order.  |
