Advice needed for making a slideshow for my father's funeral

First of all, I'm sorry for your loss and applaud you for your plans to create something that will be a beautiful tribute (and won't be easy as every photo will bring memories)

As you can guess, I've been through similar

Good news is that you'll be able to do something very easily - using Iphoto!

Scan the pictures in a good resolution (your final output is going to be roughly 720X480 at 72 resolution, so scan accordingly and at a higher resolution than that).

Import the photos into IPhoto. Make an album from the photos and put them in the order you want.

From there it's up to you - you can do a simple Ken Burns effect slideshow (which will require some tweaking, as sometimes the effect will crop in a way you won't like and you'll have to massage it)

You can also choose other themes - so feel free to play with them and see what fits the mood.

You can then pick a song and have it fit to music (if you want more than one song, you'll have to edit the songs together outside of IPhoto - which would be easy to do in any number of editing programs). I'd recommend this versus exporting the film, importing it into IMovie and adding the music track, as this way it will fit exactly and you won't have to do any math in your head.

Then Export as Slideshow...and here someone may have to jump in as I always export as DV/DVCPRO (which is easy to do - Export it as a Slideshow, click Custom Export, Click Settings and choose DV/DVCPRO), I then compress it in Compressor and create a DVD in DVD Studio Pro.

You're going to be using IDVD, which I don't use. I think you'd do the same thing - export it and then import the clip into IDVD and have it compress it, and build a DVD (which you could then make 40 copies of)

Good luck and stay sane!

Sorry for your loss..
Just to add I think if you want to use more then one song instead of editing it together in another app, i'm pretty sure you can create a playlist in itunes and it will show up in iphoto.

"I can use Iphoto?? Okay, so scan the photos at what resolution? Is 72, 72x72?
Put them into a folder then click and drag all the photos around to place in order, correct?"

I'd advise scanning them at 300, because you are probably not using only 8X10" photos - most are 4X6 or so (and this will give you the resolution bump to blow them all up to the size you'll need) Put the photos in a folder, Drag the Folder from your Desktop into Albums (on the left side bar in IPhoto), which will create an album with the name of your folder, containing all the photos. Which you can then re-order, make sure they are rotated correctly, etc. And then can make a Slideshow or Book from that.

"From there it's up to you - you can do a simple Ken Burns effect slideshow (which will require some tweaking, as sometimes the effect will crop in a way you won't like and you'll have to massage it) Massage it, meaning??"

You're going to have to see the slideshow to understand. 80% of the photos will work beautifully, but 20% will end up starting or ending cropped in a way that won't work. You'll have to massage those manually - which will be clear when you start playing with the settings (it's very intuitive once you start playing with it). Basically, you'll just have to manually set those photos to move from point A to point B in a way that won't obscure the people in the photos.

But there are a half dozen or so themes in IPhoto that you can use - you just chose the theme once you set up the library (like Sliding Panes and such) and you might decide you like that better than the Ken Burns (more animated)

Another option is to make a book. That way you can have multiple pictures on each page. Just use the template in IPhoto for one of the books (Family Album is a great one). You can export it as a slideshow/movie. Would give you more wiggle room (all images would be static but you can change texture, backgrounds, add text if you wanted as to what they were). Might take more time than you have, but you'd also have the option of having it printed for a keepsake for you and other family members.

In looking at IPhoto 09, there is a "Send to IDVD" option, which would probably be all you'd need (as I said, I don't play w/IDVD as I use the pro apps, but Apple is really good at making these things simple...as you'll find out!

http://basics4mac.com/article.php/slideshow_dvd

or

http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#iphoto

export as large and import into iDVD.

Alternatively, iDVD can create a slideshow for you. You can also specify multiple tracks to play. I always use a simple dissolve transition.
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-create-an-idvd-slideshow.html

I have just done something similar for a niece's wedding photos.

I used iMovie which lets you move the pictures into any order you like and I set the preferences to 4s per pic, add the ken burns effect and a cross disolve between pictures. You can then add music from multiple tracks, these tracks can be trimmed in iMovie so it is easy to adjust to the slideshow. I also added chapter markers. You can also add a titles screen and credits as part of the movie.

Once it is all ready, you go to the menu Share / Share with media browser and I selected the HD verison. This will take a while to make the movie.

Now in iDVD you select a template, add some pictures to the drop zones and drag/drop the shared movie from the media zone. This will add the movie and make sub menus for selecting the chapters. Note that you can also add the raw files to the disk in a DVD-ROM section (I think this is on the Advanced menu). This lets you put the original scanned pictures and HD movie on the disk so if your relatives want to print their own versions of pictures or have a better video for a HD tv then they can. When you burn the DVD do this as a disk image then you can easily make as many copies as you need.

All the best
Andrew W.

I've made a number of these (unfortunately) for my family; where at in MI are you? Maybe I can help you somehow

Chad,

You've placed a lot of pressure on your self. Scanning in so many photos in a short time is tight because scanning is very time consuming. Learning new software and trying to make everything perfect is difficult. Creating 40 DVDs takes real time, likely many hours.

I'd scale the picture count down to 50 or 60 and present them at 5 seconds a shot. Forget reproducing so many DVDs for now. You can always let people know it will be available upon request by having them write their name and number down and possibly an e-mail address.

If you have a portable computer, just use that to show the slide show. If not, make one DVD for the presentation at the reception. Do a test to make sure the DVD works in the DVD player. Older players can't play homemade DVDs. With an adapter, you can hook up your computer to a TV.

To get familiar with the process, you may want to review some videos. Apple has some on their iLife page, and YouTube has many.

iPhoto and iMovie has the ability to export your creation directly to iDVD. That option is under the Share menu.

I share your passion for the celebration of life

Todasi said:

Hello all,

Sorry to just jump in here and ask straight up for help, but I need to make a slideshow in the next 3 days and put it to music. My plan is to scan a few hundred photos of his life with my scanner then put them to music. I then want to put it on a DVD so I can give it to family members to keep as a reminder of his life.
I am new to Mac's and have a MacBookPro aluminum unibody with IDVD '09, IPhoto '09, etc...whatever came with my Mac.
I have no clue where to start, what program to use, how to put things in order(want to go through his life, childhood to current) but photos won't be scanned in order, because some family members are bringing me photos old to current and I need to get moving on this.
I have about 20,000 more things to do besides this video, but want it to look great and something he would be proud of.

Looking for simple instructions, the easiest program that I can put to order about 200-400 photos and add about 2-3 songs to then burn it to about 40 DVD's.

Again sorry to dump and run, but I'm new to Macs and need to be talked to like a 4 year old. I would just run to the Apple store, but like I said, 20,000 things to arrange and do for the family, and this is a very important project I need to do right......simply.

My best,

Chad

Click to expand...

Firstly my sadness to your loss.
But I feel it's Great idea to produce a slide show very respectful and fitting.
I did the same for my fathers funeral, played it in church on a projection screen via my mac.

I used IDVD and stuffed it with as many photos as I could of my family and father.
Music is essential with this kind of production, I went through literally hundreds of singles to find the most fitting.
I chose "One day like this" By Elbow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk2xaeXnxlM&feature=related
Also I used this one but from the city of Prague Orchestra, a beautiful song in classic acoustics.
Nearest I could get here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Eflz8ebYE&feature=fvw

I burned all the DVD's before the funeral and gave them out to the congregation, the only problem was I RAN OUT!

Theirs some great songs to choose from all over the world, classic to rock.

Come to think of it if I had the time again I may have done the DVD via IMovie, the Ken Burns Cut away effects are always more interesting to the viewer.

I'd put as many pictures as you can on there, you WILL find the time to do it even if it takes you all night. (like it did me)

Keep you pictures around 4 seconds in length up to 250 photos any more I would reduce to 3 seconds.

Don't worry about timing the pictures with the music, this will be something you will learn later.
Trying to master the above is very time consuming!
My advice is try to place your pictures in year order it brings back memories of time gone by up to the present.
Include Friends, Family, Pets, Cars anything that was snapped with association.

Need any help don't hesitate to drop me an email, I try and get back to you ASAP

Rams

It looks to me that there is better Ken Burn's control in iPhoto. iMovie seems to insist the pictures fill the video area. This is a problem with very narrow pictures where the would be big black bars on the sides. You might want to start or end with the full image in the frame, but start/end at a zoomed in spot.

You can use the Settings button in iPhoto to set preferences for the all photos or just for one photo via a tab on the top of the pop-up that comes up. When editing a frame, you can drag it around to position it.

iMovie has the advantage of being able to more quickly see your result at each stage. iPhoto only has the play button which starts from the beginning each time, although you can jump forward quickly by one frame via a button while it is playing.

I would try about a half dozen difficult pictures in each tool to see which works best.

In either tool, choose your aspect ratio early otherwise you might have to rework things.