All of us that are passionate about photography have a few things in common. We have no problem being late for an important event because we have to stop to take a beautiful sunset image, or stop the car and get out into the middle of traffic to photograph a street when a single ray of light slips between two buildings and illuminates just the street. And it seems that we also want to share these images we create.
Creating a simple slide show has never been easier. For more than a decade we have had the capability to quickly build a slide show with a variety of different software products available. And one of the most powerful things we can do is add the extra dimension of sound. Never have I been more excited about creating slides shows since I first learned of a company called Triple Scoop Music. This great little company of amazing artists and musicians have created almost a partnership with photographers as we can now download the exact perfect music for any use. A wedding story, landscape slide show, even a powerful show with moving video footage. And, you have the artists rights to use the work. It's considered royalty free. You simply pay a small download fee and you can scour through their incredibly deep site looking for the genre, instrumental tune with all tempos and moods to fit any topic and feel.
I decided that today's tutorial should show you how easy it is to interact with the slideshow module in Lightroom and how fast I can build a show, add music, export the final result and be ready to go. First, here is the video I just created:
This show was created in Lightroom and was a fairly easy process that did not require me to watch any tutorials. I just tried things and they either worked or they didn't. The following screen shot images show the different choices I made in the check boxes and edited details of building the show.
The overall interface can be seen of the Slide Show Module in Lightroom
After you have your selected images I have viewed the flagged images that I wish to use from the catalog of work and am only seeing those images. I have put them in the order that I want and added a jpg of our logo in the front and a logo for Triple Scoop Music in the end of the show.
Next is to begin the process of building the show. Click on the Slide Show module in the top right side of the UI (user interface).
Follow the steps all the way down the different editing possibilities on the right side of the UI until you have completed all of the steps. Be sure to have the show automatically fit to your selected music. It is way easier than any other way of syncing the visuals to the music.
Pay close attention to the music segment and select automatic on the playback section. When you have reached the end of the editing area, click on preview to see what you have created. If you are happy with the show then click on Export to Video in the lower left of the UI. Click on the dropdown menu to select the size of the show you will need from 1080p all the way down to a size ideal for the mobile devices most often used.
Overall folks, this is a really fast and easy way to build a show. There are certainly some instances where you might want to vary the visual match-ups with the music more purposefully but that will require time and more software. In fact, there can even be simple shows created inside Photoshop and many people are unaware of this great feature. Here is a link to a quick tutorial from Adobe's own Julieanne Kost on building a show inside PS:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2014/12/creating-a-simple-slideshow-in-photoshop.html
Test Test Test is the answer and try to have a little fun playing with your images. For some fun music to check out, try to Tony Corbell Collection at Triple Scoop Music:
http://triplescoopmusic.com/collections/tony-corbell