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Best program for photo slideshows

R

razyl123

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hi all,

I am about to make a DVD slideshow for clients, have been using imovie04 up until now. I make fairly simple displays of photos with music, a couple of menu options but nothing flash.

I've always been really unmpressed with the image quality when played on a computer and I understand it's to do with the downscaling.....but is there a better way of doing it or other software capable of nice sharp photos?

I also have imovie HD / 06, and would be happy to get imovie 08 or maybe FCP if it really boosted the image quality of the photos in the slideshows.

Thanks,
Darryn
 
Anyone?

I've tried all kinds of export settings on iMovie HD / 06 and import those into iDVD for burning.....but still nothing good enough for my 20" imac screen.

Am i missing something or is there just no way to get high quality photos showing on a DVD slideshow?

Darryn
 
What problem are you seeing exactly? The major shortcoming in DVD slideshows is dvd is only 480p so your resolution will NEVER be anywhere near what it looks like on the computer.

If you burn to a high def format and use a computer or apple tv to show them, they'll look a lot better.
 
Imovie downscales everything that you put in it to 480p. Even if it's ultra hd (that's something like 3080 by 2000, but isn't yet in use, just want to use difficults word) or HD it will downscale. So if you export your movie to hd, and then import it, it's no use, it will downscale it. So, what to do?
1) you could try buy fcp, this is pretty expensive, for such a little problem, and in dvd studio pro you can make HD DVD's . So those are HD (you could even go bigger than your iMac screen). But, as I said: fcp aint a cheap solution. And only hd dvd dvdplayers can play your dvd (and I believe such dvdplayers are rare). Your iMac will play it ofcourse, but I don't know if other computers will (most likely yes, but you never know).
2) try toast, I believe it's free, if not, it will be pretty cheap (way cheaper than fcp), toast can even burn on blu-ray, if you have one (external, from lacie etc). So I bet they HD DVD's too.
3) on what are you showing these photo's, probably a computer. Why don't you just make a powerpoint, Or you can make something in keynote (if you stand on it) and export it to a quicktime movie, but don't burn that movie on a dvd with iDVD, but just as a movie file. Then the resolution will be the same (or how you adjusted the resolution).

Well good luck, hope this helps
 
But fotomagico will export image in hd ?
I'd like to export fotomagico project on my appletv in hd or on a standard dvd but in hd (playing with ps3).
Fotomagico will do that ?
 
Darryn

razyl123 said:
I am about to make a DVD slideshow for clients
Click to expand...

You are stepping in murcky territory here.

If it is your goal to make a DVD, then your choice is straightforward: use a video editing program and/ or DVD authoring program.
You should note that a DVD product does have:
  • a low(er) picture quality (compare to your original shot)
  • a picture aspect ratio of 16:9 (HD & SD widescreen) whilst your shot will be 4:3 or 3:2
  • a potential flickering image due to the interlaced (TV) signal

iMovie and iDVD will do the above trick for you.
FCE & FCP will give you more creativity-control, but the bullets still apply.

Now if it is your goal to make the highest quality slideshows, then DVD is not your distribution mechanism. You will create MOV files that will require QuickTime (or equivalent) to play.
You should check with your customer first what screen resolution he can handle. Most likely that will not be larger than 1920 x 1200.
Do note that the aspect ratio of computer screens and/ or beamers do not match the dimension of your shots. You will need to make choices.

Regards,
Coen
 
Another vote for FotoMagico.

I used to use a program called Still Life but that program didn't survive the transition to Intel.

I do most shows live from the laptop, though. Burning to DVD is certainly possible, but as others have mentioned you will never be able to get around the 480p (roughly 720x480 resolution) limitation of the DVD format.
 
notjustjay said:
Another vote for FotoMagico.

I used to use a program called Still Life but that program didn't survive the transition to Intel.

I do most shows live from the laptop, though. Burning to DVD is certainly possible, but as others have mentioned you will never be able to get around the 480p (roughly 720x480 resolution) limitation of the DVD format.
Click to expand...

Add another vote for FotoMagico!
 
audio in Fotomagico

ChrisBrightwell said:
I use Bonix Fotomagico.
Click to expand...

Hi
I notice that you and some others in this thread have recommended this application. I downloaded version 3 Pro as a trial yesterday as I have found that using iMovie for what I want is a nightmare in many ways. I am making talking books using still images and a narration track for each image. Some also have a sound-effect audio track too.

So what I want to know is (and I haven't been able to get a useful answer from the Fotomagico support as yet): does it have a timeline where I can position the sound-effect track to begin over the narration audio track. The pro version allows for multiple audio tracks but I can't see how to overlap them with an accuracy.

Any ideas out there?
Thanks
from LeeAnne
 
Ah, failed to take notice, Brother AllergyDoc. Thanks muchly. On the other hand, iMovie still has that darn image quality problem.
Cheers,
 
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