Slideshow - what is wrong with OS X???

[OldCorpse]

Sorry, but OS X just sucks when it comes to slideshows. There's something wrong at Cupertino, when such a basic need is not addressed in OS X - and which is done on windows with absolute ease.

I have a huge collection of photos, and I'm just disgusted every time I want to show friends a slideshow from a trip. You simply cannot do it on OS X. Preview doesn't work beyond a few photos - select all, click slideshow, and if you have more than a few photos, it'll show a dozen or so in random order (NOT in the order in which they are in a folder), and then quit. If I try to show, say 2000 photos, I have to do it in chunks, or else Preview freaks out. Windows users can't believe OS X doesn't have this simple capability.

I would guess that maybe iPhoto has this ability, but I absolutely hate iPhoto and I eradicated it from my computer - I'm sure it's just great for others, but for my personal needs it's a worthless, slow, bloated app which does not allow me to control how I want to deal with photos.

So I went looking for third party apps which can do this SIMPLE thing - just display my darn photos in a freakin' slideshow! After reading a lot of hype about Boinx FotoMagico, i tried it out. What a joke. It wasn't even able to import my folder with 2500 photos - I got the spinning pizza for 5 minutes then it crashed. I uninstalled it immediately from my computer.

So now I turn to the experienced folks here: is there such an animal on OS X as a simple slideshow app which can handle large numbers of photos (and not iPhoto!!)? Or am I condemned to use a windows computer every time I want to have a slideshow?

 

[swiftaw]

Edit: Nevermind, yeah, i just tried it, to see if i could figure out what order it shows them in. No clue.

Maybe this will be better in Leopard.

Edit2: Try this maybe http://www.parkersoftware.com/products/archer/index.html

 

[jczubach]

I use a handy little 3rd party app called Phoenix Slides. Free (donationware) handles thousands, by file, by sequence or random. Apple should buy this applet!!!

 

[OldCorpse]

I haven't tried swiftaw's suggestion, but I downloaded jczubach's recom - Phoenix Slides. OK - this is what I wanted. It does what OS X cannot do... a slideshow. I'd prefer a slightly better UI - instead of remembering obscure keyboard shortcuts, it would've been better if it had a graphic come up like preview has for slideshow buttons back, forward, pause resume quit etc. Still, this is great. Thank you very much - it solves my problem!

 

[theBB]

If you highlight your pics in Finder, right-click or ctrl-click on them and select slideshow, it should make a slideshow with more than a dozen pics without any problems. Yes, they come out in a random order if you are using icon view in Finder. (Actually, it is not random, but algorithm is hard to decrypt.) However, if you use list or column view, the pics should be in a proper order. I forgot whether it was list, column or both views, but you can check it out.

I am not surprised that Preview freaks out with 2000 pictures. That's really a lot.

 

[OldCorpse]

If you highlight your pics in Finder, right-click or ctrl-click on them and select slideshow, it should make a slideshow with more than a dozen pics without any problems. Yes, they come out in a random order if you are using icon view in Finder. (Actually, it is not random, but algorithm is hard to decrypt.) However, if you use list or column view, the pics should be in a proper order. I forgot whether it was list, column or both views, but you can check it out.

I am not surprised that Preview freaks out with 2000 pictures. That's really a lot.

I do exactly that (highlight, or "select all", then right-click on 'slideshow'), and the thing just dies after some small number (maybe 50-70 tops?). That's useless to me. In the folder I want to show friends tonight, for example, I have 2543 photos. OS X just sh|ts its pants on a number like that. Never fear though, the solution provided jczubach works - Phoenix Slides. Thank god for developers - apple bites when it comes to slideshows. My problem is solved, but what a shame for OS X, even windows is miiiiiiiles ahead on this particular thing.

 

[dejo]

I do exactly that (highlight, or "select all", then right-click on 'slideshow'), and the thing just dies after some small number (maybe 50-70 tops?). That's useless to me. In the folder I want to show friends tonight, for example, I have 2543 photos.

I just looked at 300+ high-res photos from Apple PR in this manner with no hiccups, so it's not like it happens to everyone.

P.S. 2543 photos? I pity your friends. Even at 3 seconds per pic, that's over 2 hours of viewing. Yikes!

 

[OldCorpse]

I just looked at 300+ high-res photos from Apple PR in this manner with no hiccups, so it's not like it happens to everyone.

P.S. 2543 photos? I pity your friends. Even at 3 seconds per pic, that's over 2 hours of viewing. Yikes!

What can I say... Phoenix Slide doesn't have those problems - works on 2000+ pictures no problem... so the issue is not at my end with the computer or graphics card.

As to 2 hours of photo viewing, heck we're all photography buffs, so it's no problem at all