slide show presentation for DVD

[KimSWilliamson]

Hey Everyone,

I have a rather large job that includes a slide show of 150 photos. They can send them to me in any format and size. I want to know what is best for putting into Renommee, or should i do them in some other editing system best for making a slide show, very upscale with transitions, titling, music, etc.

The NTMA images are 2400 x 1600, RGB, 300 ppi. All images are currently 8 inches wide and CMYK format. They can be batched to any size.


I have never produced and edited a high end slide show put on DVD which is what the customer wants.

any suggestions are greatly appreciated

Thanks, Kim

[ChrisStone]

Kim, my suggestion would be to purchase Proshow Gold, or Proshow Producer. Most folks I know including myself use one of these two programs to do really nice, quick slide shows, regardless of what they edit video on.

http://www.photodex.com/products/proshow/gold

[flvideo]

Kim I also edit with a Renommee. I just did a slide show of 350 stills and several clips of video. I scanned all the pictures in and put them into the Rennee with Photo suite 2 and it turned out good and the client was thrilled. The most time consuming thing was them loading in the Rennee. I had done several before but never one quite so large. The scanning was pretty time consuming but you have a choice of how you get them. I hope this helps you in a small way. Bob...

[KimSWilliamson]

thanks to you both for helping me out and your great suggestions

What is the best size and format to have these photos sent to me?

Should I put them in a 4:3 format or 16:9 when I put the slide show on DVD?

I guess everyone will have 16:9 to watch the slideshow.

But for the original photos, what size etc should i have the photos sent to me as? They will be putting the originals on a flash drive for me to upload.

Thanks, Kim

[TimKennelly]

Kim,

If you are using Photo Studio they have to be a specific jpg format that includes color formatting (even if they are black and whites) so good luck that whoever is sending them to you does them in a way compatible with the MS system.

If you are using Pro Show Gold or Producer, any format is compatible.

I prefer the MS editing platform in general over PC editing, but no one editing platform is the best for all things and photo manipulation is one of the ones where the software that MS supplies really falls down compared to the competition.

For doing a lot of photos the choice between Photo Studio versus Pro Show Gold is like the choice between digging a hole in the ground for a basement with a trowel and a shovel.

Photo Studio would be the trowel, Pro Show the shovel, either can do the job, but I know which one I would and always have picked and it ain't the trowel.

Of course, if you have no choice, but to do all your editing in your MS editor, Photo Studio is the choice.

As for the 4:3 and/or 16:9 part, with Pro Show you can create your product in either and then switch over to the other and easily tweak how any photos appear and create it that way as well.

You can even include both on one DVD with Pro Show.

I can't answer for Photo Studio regarding this issue other to know if it's do-able it will be far more tedious and klutzy like everything in that program compared to Pro Show.

PS - If you are going to want to add movement and zoom into some of the photos you need decent resolution (more so with Photo Studio).

[KimSWilliamson]

Thank you Tim,


this has greatly reduced my anxiety over how to make a very high quality product for the client (a whole bunch of architects from all over the US - yikes!)

Do I need the Show Gold or the professional version?

One is under $100 and the other is about $250, which I would rather not have to invest in at this time!

Thank you again guys for helping me sort through this - don't know what I would do without this forum of such great videographers of MS!

Kim

[TimKennelly]

Kim,

Producer allows you to do more things with layers and more output choices, but Pro Show Gold will allow you to easily create Photo Montages and the like and output to DVD if you have a burner in your PC.

[KimSWilliamson]

Tim,

I don't know if I have a DVD burner inside my cpu. Guess I better find out! If not, can I purchase a decent external DVD burner and which do you recommend?


If I burn a DVD straight from the Pro Show Gold or Producer, is there some kind of chapter or film icon that will show up on the DVD?

For the photo montage, there are about 150 photos, with award winners, honorable mentions, etc. The client wants music, and titling, etc.

Can I make Title pages with the Pro Show Gold or Producer?
Kim

[TimKennelly]

Well, anyone can download http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html and run it to see everything about their PC, hardware, software, drives, burners, ram, etc.

I wouldn't recommend an external burner for a PC, too easy to install them and much cheaper.

Normally, most PCs have easy open cases, extra slots for hard drives and burners, extra power and data connectors for them also.

The biggest problem is if it's an old PATA connector PC instead of a SATA connector PC you will find it harder to find the proper drives, burners, etc.

This isn't really the forum to get into PC installations though.

[ChrisStone]

Hi Kim
Yes, you can create title pages, or you can put text right on the photo itself, and yes, you can create menus with chapters for individual movies.

You can download either program and run it in its demo mode which will allow you to do everything that the purchased version will, it just places a watermark banner on your finished video.

Chris