A couple of minutes!!! I had a few pictures that date from the 1920's or earlier.... took about 4 hours in Photshop to remove the dust spots and scratches. Looks great now, tho.

I had one picture (from before 1932) that I tried to both pan and zoom... that was a mess. I think you are right that it needs to be slow. I really don't like the way Vegas starts and stops. It seems really abrupt, even with the keyframe set to "slow". But I guess if I slow everything down, it may help.

Thanks JJ,

Keith

I may not be the most experienced here but slideshows is a large part of what I do for folks. I have found that indiscriminate panning/zooming is very distracting.

I try to locate the main point of each photo and either zoom in or out from that. Always remember to keep the basics of good photography in mind in doing any of this (rule of thirds, leading lines, etc...).

I use Corel Photopaint proportional smudge and spray paint controls with the picture zoomed up a ton, maybe at least 200%. You have to get the quicky mouse clicks down pat to proportionally eliminate the dirt or decay mark and if it's too bad spray paint it first then smudge it. If you have enough time you can create the whole picture over again but in my case I don't have much time left. The diameter of the circle should be typically around 14 numerically or there will be too much noticeable correction on color slides particullarly with blue-grey skys.
You can also use "swipe movements" to remove or blend straight line areas, even with the circle half on the light color and half on the dark color. Some pictures will take 10 minutes but when you get done they are like brand new with added color saturation, contrast, whatever. Once you get the "Swipe" move down you will be the man.
JJK

Too much of a good thing is, well, not a good thing. Here are some rules of thumb I use:

I try to limit the panning/zooming to every 4th or 5th photo in a large montage. Or maybe 2 photos in a row, then none for 3 or 4. You get the idea.

Let the pace of the piece (music, etc.) dictate the frequency and amount of motion. A sports montage calls for quick "snap motion" or zooms, while a memorial piece benefits from a very slow/subtle pan or zoom.

Use motion on photos that depict motion.

If you are matching aspect ratios, then portrait-oriented photos are ideal for a slow vertical pan.

Don't forget that you can use rotation in addition to pan/zoom. A rotation coupled with a zoom-out often makes for a very nice effect.

Of course, all of these are just rules of thumb. Let the material dictate their use to you.

I really don't like the way Vegas starts and stops. It seems really abrupt, even with the keyframe set to "slow".

If you're using Vegas 6 or older, try setting the Smoothness value to 0 on the very first keyframe and the rest will stay that way. This avoids the annoying "bumps" at the begining and/or end.
In Vegas 7, this setting was (finally!!) changed so that 0 is now the default.

Mike

Another thing that mitigates any start-stop abruptness is to do dissolves from one photo to another, so that the starting or stopping is hidden by the time it occurs for that particular image.

One of the things I am now seeing all the time on the History Channel is the still photo where the characters are magically cut out from the background and placed in the foreground, so as the camera pans or zooms the viewer gets a 3D effect. Pretty good trick, and I'll bet pretty labor-intensive.

took about 4 hours in Photshop to remove the dust spots and scratches.

That's lot of time to spend on touch-up. I have scanned and re-touched over 70,000 photos in the past five years (most of them from before 1960). I scan mostly from negatives, but sometimes from prints. You name it, I've scanned it. I can usually do "good enough" touch-up in the time it takes to do a scan (typically a minute on my Nikon Coolscan 4000). The secret is to use the right tool (or tools) for each part of the job. Often, especially on older photos, you will find that the emulsion doesn't provide much detail in the sky or on other background elements. Often you can get rid of dust and scratches in that part of the photo by using a noise removal tool (I use PhotoImpact, which I like a LOT better than Photoshop) rather than the clone or healing tool. This can usually be done very quickly.

You definitely need to get rid of spots if you are going to pan because they "jump out" as soon as you introduce motion.

As to how much panning/zooming/rotation (don't forget about rotation) to do, I let the music be the guide (assuming you are using music). I have done slideshows for everything from funerals to weddings and lots of things in between. For the local high school two years ago, I did a dozen separate slide shows on one DVD using music the kids chose. Most of this music was pretty up-tempo. For some of those slideshows, I moved the photos -- a LOT: I pulsed them with the music; did jump cut movements; spun them around like a top; and lots more. The other reason for going wild was the audience. This was a post-MTV audience, and static shots just don't cut it.

Finally, whatever you do, you need to vary the shots. Don't do zoom-zoom-zoom (sounds like a car commercial), pan-pan-pan. In addition to letting the music guide your choices, look at the photo and see what it suggests. A mother holding a baby suggests one type of treatment, like a slow zoom; someone doing extreme sports on a snowboard probably merits a totally different approach.

I actually did that. This is for my Dad's 80th birthday, and I took his high school year book, and had his photo and name "float" up off the page. It turns out that you don't even need 3-D masking for that, because if you add a drop shadow, it gives it a 3-D look (and hides the page behind it). I tried it out of a group picture and it was harder, because to do it right, you need to "fill in" the picture where your subject was, so that when you pan, there is a part of the picture behind them.

Thanks all.... great tips.

Keith

ETA: Thanks John. Great tips on the zoom/panning. I'm getting a good idea, and I don't think I'm too far off. Regarding the "de-spotting". I'm using Photoshop 5.5 and I hate it. It is perhaps the most cumbersome software I've ever used, and even the tutorials are baffeling. In it, I use the Clone tool to clone an area around the spot or scratch to hide it. It works, to be sure, but it takes me forever. I have some color and contrast to correct on some photos, and I'm going to take them to a friend that has Elements, and he swears it's easy to do with Elements!

I don't know whether this is useful, but I have something I did many years ago as part of a rehearsal dinner wedding tribute. The material included negatives, slides, prints, Super8 and 8mm film, and video. Probably 2/3 was stills. All the things I described in my previous post about following the music (half of which was given to me and other half of which I chose, including the finale), and also fitting the movement to the picture are illustrated better in this piece than any of the others I have done.

Unfortunately, the only version I can easily find is in Real Media format. Here it is, if you are interested (12 MByte download, good for seven days):

Rehearsal Dinner Bride/Groom Tribute

we work with video.. video is predominately motion. If i wanted a slideshow to just pop my pictures in an out, id use powerpoint.
There is nothin wrong with animating a picture. In fact, for my own work, i animate EVERY picture.. from a pan, zoom, rotation, filter, parrallaxed animated photo <ie multi layered image recomposited>, Animated feature point within a photo <my special sauce>, or a moving filter change... or just using a combination of any of the above

The fact that i animate layers of the pictures (parrallax animation) in addition to layering the "flat" pictures atop a custom background make my slideshows invaluable to my clients.
Slideshows are now a big thing for 85% of my clients and with them, once they see the work, they usually upgrade the packages to about 500 to 1000 dollars more as the client would rather have their guests see the slideshow as oposed to just having it on their DVD's
Its a big money spinner and its worth every cent considering that most of the work can be done in a day.

Theres no such thing as too much. remember, youre tryin to bring these images to life...

as for touching up, ulead photoimpact is a cheap alternative to PS and it allows the use of PS plugins. it also has PS tools within the system such as touch up tool (a no-brainer airbrush) as well as multiple cloning tools and brushes. Faster than PS it does most of what PS can do and for individual pics, its perfect (and dirt cheap)

I was amazed at the response I got from people by simply dropping a radial blur on top of a photo and then panning it across. Simple little things like that can really grab people.

I suggest that you not limit yourself to pan/zoom -- anything that fits the material and audience can be thrown at a slide show. Like others have said, the MTV generation will drift away if the images aren't dynamic while us older folks may be content with slow pans, so think about the intended audience and what they will expect/accept, and how much effort you are willing to spend to jazz-up your still images. The ultimate "rule" is how people react to the end product.