Slideshow (using still pictures) -- looking for ideas...

sofakng wrote on 9/11/2003, 5:56 PM

Anybody here do any fancy slideshows before using Vegas? (or using other tools for that matter)

I've made one slideshow before, it showed a picture, then the date it was taken faded in, then the text went away, then the next picture faded in slowly.

That was pretty much the whole slideshow.

It actually came out VERY good and in my opinion, it looks very professional.

However, I'm looking to make a second slideshow and was wondering if anybody ever did this before and if they had any ideas.

Just looking for some suggestions... any suggestions...

thanks.

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 9/11/2003, 6:13 PM

Yes, you can make some very fancy slideshows with Vegas. Aside from the usual stuff, a nice feature if not over used is to pan/zoom some of the still images. We've all seen the effect on epics on the History Channel and others.

Of course add a musical track...

I think grouping like sized pictures works best. What I mean is if you have a whole range of images think about arranging them so you're not constantly jumping from those larger on the vertical than than those wider on the horzontial. I find it distracking and more pleasing if a whole series is one way before jumping to another series the other way.

While transations are nice, probably overkill to have fancy transitions between every image.

If you're going to end up putting them on a DVD I find it smarter to make several smaller vid then set it up so each group pays seperately but all the way through. You can still add chapeters, but if you do arrange in some practical configuration.

If you're going to do panning and zooming probably makes sense to scan or resize at between double and triple the project frame size.

antone5542 wrote on 9/11/2003, 6:13 PM

try adding motion to the pictures. A very slow pan or zoom makes it a lot more interesting (just don't overdo it!) This is very easy in Vegas. I just finished a slide show with 600 pictures in it and I have to say it was so much easier than using Premiere (which I used for years).

If you want every picture and transition to be the same length, go to the editing options and set the option to overlap pictures when adding to the timeline and set the time you want for each. Then, put all the pictures in one bin and select them all and drag them to the timeline. Vegas will put the pictures in alphabetical order and put in a crossfade between them. It is very quick (although doesn't work very well if you are timing to the music).

randy-stewart wrote on 9/11/2003, 7:37 PM

Sofakng,
If you are looking for examples, here are a couple of sites that have some:
http://www.vegasusers.com/vidshare/
http://www.cr-home-videos.com/
The vegasusers.com site is run by Chienworks and is an open forum for users to post videos to get feedback. The cr-home-videos site is my own personal site. I just posted a draft of a project (under sample videos) that I'm doing for family called Julie's Show that might interest you. It's about 250 pictures. I used pan/crop on each one and included a few transitions other than crossfade at major change points. I has music included also. This is a draft as I'm still working on the intro and ending but you'll get the idea of what pan/crop can do for still shots. Hope this helps.
Randy

sofakng wrote on 9/11/2003, 10:37 PM

Thanks for the suggestions!

I already had music (I forgot to mention that)... However, I'm open to ideas for songs... This slideshow is going to be a gift for my girlfriend.. All the pictures from our first year going out.

Stewart, thanks for the links. I checked out your draft of Julies Family Slideshow. It looks VERY VERY well done. You said the opening and ending weren't done yet so I won't comment on those :)

However, quick question for you guys. I rendered a test movie with some zooms and pans (just like you have) but the rendered avi file looks all choppy and not smooth at all.

Am I setting something wrong or doing something wrong?

Thanks for all your help!

randy-stewart wrote on 9/12/2003, 12:25 AM

Hmmm, did you defrag before rendering? I've had that cause stuttering or pixelation before. Makes a big difference. When you say choppy...does it appear to be the actual pan/crop motion? Or, does it appear more like the hard drive is stuttering or the show is pixelating? If it looks like the pan/crop motion is messed up, check to see if you have a diamond on top of a diamond in the pan/crop timeline. I've done that sometimes and it causes the motion to start and then go back and start over. If that's the case, delete one of the diamonds and configure the one that is left. The defrag should fix the pixelation problem.

As for music, I did a short sound on slide show with Celine Dione's "Because You Loved Me" for an anniversary once. Another good one is her "Falling Into You" track. Both are off her Falling Into You CD.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm doing quite a bit of editing on the Julie show tonight as it needs some pizaz. Hope this helps.
Aloha,
Randy

DGrob wrote on 9/12/2003, 10:17 AM

When doing animated stills via pan/crop I've taken to rendering at the "Best" setting. Takes a while for the render, but what the heck. Set it off at bedtime and it's done next am. Seems to make a big difference in smooooothing things out. DGrob

randy-stewart wrote on 9/12/2003, 11:21 AM

DGrob,
Good point. I do that also.
Randy

sofakng wrote on 9/12/2003, 11:42 AM

Thanks. I tried rendering it with "Best" and it actually didn't help too much.

However, these pictures I'm using are scanned in at 1200x1200 @ 200 DPI so they aren't the highest quality. Maybe that has something to do with it?

After looking it over though, maybe "choppy-ness" isnt the correct way to describe it. The pan/zoom is super-smooth, but a lot of pixels are "shaking" or "flickering". I can upload a video if you don't know what I mean.

If I convert my uncompressed .AVI to .MPG (MPG-1) then a lot of the pixel flickering/shaking goes away. This slideshow will end up on a VHS tape anyways so I'm not expecting perfect quality.

Anyways, I've started adding pan's and zoom's to all my slideshow shots... they made a whole world of difference. It is startng to come out VERY nicely.

Do you guys have any tips for scanned-in photographs? Any programs that could help increase the quality of them at all?

johnmeyer wrote on 9/12/2003, 11:46 AM

I have just done two slideshow tributes (which also include a few video clips). If you have Real Player, just click on these two links to view them:

Wedding Triubte

Anniversary Tribute

kbaker_1 wrote on 9/12/2003, 12:15 PM

I am finding very long render times for just a 2 min slideshow saved as a .mov or wmv file format.

How long would it take to render one of the two files you shared?
What format (besides the real media) did you create for the final version?

jsteehl wrote on 9/12/2003, 12:48 PM

Maybe I'm misundertanding but if your target is VHS why render to MPG1 (or anything for that matter). Just do a print to tape from the timeline or render to AVI and PTT from the Capture Utility.

-J

randy-stewart wrote on 9/12/2003, 1:59 PM

Sofakng,

I scan using 300dpi and medium quality (using Photoshop 7). If you search this forum for scanning pictures, you should get several threads on this topic. Chienworks has some really good inputs. His advice is that you don't need to scan at very high dpi as it doesn't make a noticable difference. However, read his inputs as I may be off here.

As for your shaky problem, do you have a 7200 rpm hard drive and are you running the file off of that (please excuse if you have previously posted system info)? I've heard of this kind of problem when the drive is a slower speed than 7200 rpm (like 5400). Also, is it a separate drive from your system drive where you have Vegas running? That makes a difference also. It's best to render out to a separate drive.

I'd recommend that you stay with .avi files for copy to tape. My experience with MPEG-1 is not too good quality wise. It's okay for on the internet with a small screen but not for VHS especially at full screen.

Hope this helps.

Randy

sofakng wrote on 9/13/2003, 10:14 AM

Ok, I'll search for that scanning thread.

I've been using an HP 3500C scanner (1200x1200) @ 200 DPI and I set Sharpen to "Extreme".

The pictures I'm scanning are taken from a disposable 35mm camera, so they aren't very high quality to begin with.

The reason I converted from .AVI --> .MPG was because the .MPG did make it look slightly worse, but it took away those "shaky" pixels. Full-screen on my TV the pictures do look kind of low quality, but I'm not sure I could get them any higher than what I have them at. I don't have access to a 2400x1200 resolution scanner, but I wonder how much of a difference it would make?

My computer is a 2.53 GHz with IBM DeskStar 40gb 7200 rpm hard drives (two of them). I will try deragmenting and see if that helps...

My main concern is the scanner right now though...

Thanks again to everybody for their help! Very helpful forum...