Making a Slideshow with Your Photos
/
Hi folks! Welcome to The Photo Video Guy. While I accept, but don’t really understand, that most still photographers are not interested in doing video, many of use are interested in putting together a nice slideshow. So let’s see how to do that fun and simply
What is a slideshow anyway? It’s a sequence of images, on screen for a period of time, and there may be a music track added to bring some added value to the stills. In a structured slide show, the slides will often change to follow the music. I still see questions on how to do slideshows, often from Lightroom Classic users who have tried the Lightroom Slideshow module and have decided to stop beating their heads against the wall.
This is smart. The Lightroom slideshow module is on its best day, really quite horrible. You know what is perfect for making a slideshow? A video editor!
Think about it. A slideshow is really a short video. It has dynamism as the slides change., there may be a voiceover, and there is often backing music. That sounds like at least one video track and maybe two audio tracks. Add some titles and such and you have another video track. It looks like layers because it really is the same in construction.
Slideshow Builder Applications
You can certainly go online and purchase slideshow building applications, but I have to ask you why? If you have a Macintosh, you already have an awesome slideshow making app installed and free. It’s called iMovie. One of the many reasons to consider the upgrade to Windows 11 is the included Video Editor. Yes, that’s right, there is a pretty decent little video editor built right into Windows 11 that costs you nothing. You start at by hitting Search and typing Video Editor. Pretty easy if not as easy as it should be.
Making a Slideshow
Every video project has media in it. Videographers think of video clips predominantly, but a still photograph is still media and can easily be added to your media pool or bin, depending on what the app calls it.
All videos are built on what is called a Timeline. It’s very simple. Drag your media to the timeline in the order that you want to play it back. Video editors assign a default duration to still images, typically about five seconds, but by dragging the handles on a still image media placement, you can shorten or lengthen .the duration on a by still basis or set a standard duration for all stills in the preferences area.
Background Music and Voiceovers
You will also find audio tracks.. Here you can drag audio files with background music to go behind your slides. Be sure not to use unlicensed copyrighted music if you plan on publishing your slideshow or you will find it taken down for infringement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Fortunately, if you are not a musician there are lots of services like Triple Scoop Music who do license music for videos and such. There are others of course if you look.
Most video editors also support what is often called Voiceover tracks. This is just an audio track that you record using your computer microphone while playing the slideshow to keep your voiceover in sync with the slideshow. While you can certainly use your computer’s built in microphone, a small investment in a decent USB microphone will give you better recording quality. You don’t need a studio grade microphone and an audio interface, just a USB microphone with a decent mic capsule. I have had good experience with Blue Microphones in the past, but that range was recently sold to Logitech and Logitech support is really horrible. Still a Yeti or a Snowball is pretty straightforward and you can use that same microphone for Skype or Zoom or Teams as well.
The nice thing about a voiceover is that if something goes wrong, you can just re-record it, or spend five minutes learning to use your video editor to edit audio because it will do the basics there as well.
No PowerPoint Required
There is no need to create the workload to put your images in PowerPoint or Keynote and then figure out how to pull it all together. And if you do actually have a video clip or few, they are just media and fit right in, and you are already working in a video editor if you need to cut, trim or rearrange sequences.
Summary
Making a slideshow is very easy when you use the right tools and you have the heavy workers as part of your computer already. If someone tells you that making a slideshow is a lot of work and very hard, they are mistaken. It’s easy, fun and immensely satisfying.
Do you have an idea for an article, tutorial, video or podcast? Do you have an imaging question unrelated to this article? Send me an email directly at ross@thephotovideoguy.ca or post in the comments. When you email your questions on any imaging topic, I will try to respond within a day.
If you shop with B&H Photo Video, please consider doing so through the link on thephotovideoguy.ca as this helps support my efforts and has no negative impact whatsoever on your shopping experience.
If you find the podcast, videos or articles of value, consider clicking the Donation tab in the sidebar of the website and buy me a coffee. Your donation goes to help me keep things going.
Click this link to submit your questions
I'm Ross Chevalier, thanks for reading, watching and listening and until next time, peace.
