In an earlier article on this site "What to do with all those digital pictures?", we talked about our system of using the marvels of digital photography to take thousands of shots.
We created folders in "our pictures" directory on our computer, one for each month of the year, and simply off-loaded the camera's media into the appropriate month folder as it became full.
This process provided a historical time reference for any photos stored on the computer. In a year or two we could still correlate a specific photo to the month and year in which it was taken. A helpful process for those of us who's memory is starting to get a little wonky!
Now, what to do with all these photos?
Make digital slideshows with them, that's what.
Our "DVD" case is full of home made slideshows created from paper and digital photographs.
Some slideshows contain all the pictures from a complete calendar year, with the months of that year as the chapters for that show.
Others are slideshows of specific events; family gatherings, a trip to Upper Canada Village in Ontario, Canada; you get the idea.
Not only does having slideshows provide hours of entertainment for gatherings at our home, having the slideshows on Cd's provides a back up should any of the original digital or paper pictures be lost.
So, how do you make slideshows?
For those folks that haven't the time, or the inclination to learn some software the easiest route is to contact a provider of digital slideshow services. Their professional experience will ensure an excellent outcome for your shows.
If you are more adventurous, and would like to tackle making slideshows yourself, here are a some tips.
If it's paper photos you want converted into digital, or it's existing digital photos you want converted to slideshow, first select all of the photos in question.
On the back of paper photos, number them from one and up, in the order you want them to appear on your slideshow. Decide if you want on-screen captions for some or all the photos. If so, write the text for that caption on the back of those you wish.
If you are converting paper photographs into digital format, which is necessary for making a slideshow, you will need access to a scanner. If that becomes a bit daunting, reconsider using a service provider. They will be able to handle the scanning of your photographs for you. They can then provide you with an electronic album of your photos, or create the slideshow for you, or both.
For digital pics, select all of the digital photos you want for a particular show, and copy them into a folder you have created for the purpose. Once you have the copies in there, rename them from one and up, in the order you want them presented on your show.
Create a word .doc with the text for each caption beside the corresponding number of your photo should you wish captions visible as the slides are shown.
Do you wish any chapter headings, a cover shot for the slideshow? Make a note of these.
What about music? Select the music you would like as background for your slideshow. Try to get music long enough (or a number of pieces of music that are long enough) to last the length of your show.
Each slide in your show should play for about 6-8 seconds. That's ample time to see the shot and to read the caption without the picture becoming boring. Therefore, if your slideshow has 30 pictures in it, your music selection should be around 3 1/2 minutes.
Please note that if your slideshow is for other than personal use, you cannot use copyrighted music, which is pretty much all the popular music of the day. If your slideshow is for business use, consider finding public domain, copyright free music for your show. It's available if you Google those search terms.
Before you begin building your slideshow, decide if you want voice-over narration instead of word text. Or maybe you want both? Your call.
Limit each of your slideshows to about 3-5 minutes so that viewers don't get trapped into watching for huge lengths of time. Unless they have a vested interest in the show (for example, they were with you on the trip to that luxury resort) most folks won't hold the same interest in your photos as you do.
So how do we convert paper photos or digital photographs into a marvelous screen slideshow that you'll be proud to display for guests or at the next company function?
That's for the next article; "Making a slideshow".
As always, questions about the process are welcome. Feel free to contact us through our website.
Mr. Wade has parlayed a passion for computers, the internet, and digital photography into diverse activities including his own web site that discusses web site building, creating digital slide shows, and crafting Ebooks. He can be contacted via that site: http://www.solid-gold-websites.com
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