Slideshows have come a long way since they were, well, shows made up of slides. You remember slides. Tiny pictures in tiny cardboard frames, loaded into slotted, deep-dish circular trays or saltine-cracker-sleeve-shaped contraptions. Get one slide out of order, and you had to move all the previous and subsequent slides by hand. That’s right. By hand. The humanity!

Today’s computer users have it easy. The ability to view a collection of photos in a slideshow is built right into modern operating systems. Want to add mood music? No problem. Add some pizzazz with cinematic transitions between slides? One click – done. Time the slides so that the show length fits the song length? Cake. The only remaining human input is which photos to use, and in what order to place them (and undoubtedly someone is programming a computer to usurp that duty as well).
So, it is that human input that we will focus on in this look at the “art and soul” of the slideshow. Sure, we’ll engage in some “tech talk”, but our focus will be on how to use technology to pull heartstrings, inspire, and entertain.

Let me first define the term “slideshow” (at least the way I’m going to use it). A slideshow is the viewing of a sequence of photos, either by an individual or a group. A slideshow can run the gamut from a static, sterile, emotionless presentation to the telling of a powerful, heart-rending story that rivals anything you could do with film or video. In fact, many of the same techniques and rules-of-thumb of film/video editing apply to slideshow production (we’ll get to those later).

Slideshows can serve many purposes, from creating a quick slideshow for viewing recently imported photos, to a carefully thought-out, storyboarded, moving multimedia exhibition of one’s work at the local Photo Club.

Slideshows can be shown in many different “venues” to many varied audiences. A slideshow on your computer screen to an audience of one or two. A photo web page with an option to view a sequence of photos. A web page or CD containing a QuickTime or Windows Media movie of your slideshow. A slideshow burned onto a DVD, viewed on a television with family and friends. Your photos on “the big screen” via a computer and video projector.

There are many software tools available to help make slideshows. Whichever specific tool you use, here are some general guidelines to follow that will make your slideshows look better.

Consider the screen size of your images. If the original images from your camera are, say, 640 by 480 pixels, and your slideshow program automatically increases the size of the images to fill your 17-inch monitor, which may be something like 1280 by 1024 pixels, your images will be fuzzy. Just another good reason to always shoot at the highest resolution your camera and memory will allow. Better to have a sharp image filling one-third of the screen than a blurred full-screen image.

Fix your photos. Adjust brightness, contrast, and color. Digital photos, by their nature, require some brightening and color correction to accurately represent what you saw when you took the photo. Most images will appear a bit darker when viewed on a television or video projector. Straighten the image. Rotate if necessary. Crop, but remember that you’re removing image size that may cause fuzziness when the image is expanded to fit the slideshow.

Now you can think about the story you want to tell. Next time we’ll slide into ordering your photos, timing, pacing, transitions, special effects, music, and mood.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski