Slide Presentation Workflow Help

I've never used Keynote, so I'll stick to your question #4...

An Aperture "slideshow" is exported as a video. Yes, you can set a style, and add titles and music, but the pace of the resulting show is set when you create the show.

Keynote produces the more typical click-the-buttone-to advance show.

As I said, I've never used Keynote. If it's like the iLife programs, I expect you can browse iPhoto and Aperture libraries from within Keynote and import your choices. If that's the case, what you're importing is the Preview images from Aperture and their resolution is specified in the Aperture Preferences.

You mentioned 'projection' of your show, and the Preview settings should be checked. If you change them, you need to regenerate the JPEG preview images. 1500-2000 pixels is higher resolution than most projectors and a 'quality' of 8 is plenty for most content.

You can do the slideshow directly out of Aperture, no need to export it to play it. If your doing the presentation off your MAc and you don't need the extra presentation stuff that keynote brings then doing it right from Aperture might be the easiest way to go.

You are overthinking this...

One more time: I have NEVER used Keynote. But I think it's worth $20 for you to go the App Store and buy a copy. There are online videos that describe Keynote and the first, http://www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/#keynote-intro shows how to create a presentation with photos (just substitute Aperture Library for iPhoto when he searches for a photo).

Back to Previews, Fit Within is fine, Quality of 8 is indistinguishable from higher quality unless you have a theater-grade projector or large expanses of subtle color shades. Skip exporting the images to a folder, PNG is no help at all here.

As has been said before, Aperture slide shows make a movie, whether you view it on a Mac (in or out of Aperture), a projector, the web, or a TV. You cannot control the pace except by pausing it. Imagine a "kiosk" where a video presentation shows with some background music.

What do you mean about including 'animations'? Aperture is designed to handle video from cameras but other sources are doubtful.

My suggestion: Create an Album of ten images you'll use. Select All and create a New Slideshow with those images. You can add some effect or text if you like. Text can be in a limited number of places or on a blank slide. You haven't told us what your audience is -- close family or critical business partners. How many images?

Next, go spend $20 on Keynote. Follow the tutorial (above) and create a few slides. Import them from the Media Browser in Keynote. The demo theme they show is pretty broad -- I think they have some more image-oriented themes, too.

To be honest I've only played around some with Keynote so apart from knowing it does presentations I can't really say more. There is a a list here devoted to just Keynote so tou may want to ask your keynote questions there Keynote

As for Aperture it can be as simple as selecting a bunch of images (anywhere in Aperture doesn't have to be in a slide show album) and hitting shift-s. When you say you want to control the slide show 'manually' do you mean having a slide up until you hit a key? If so Aperture has this. In the Slideshow presets create a new preset (cal it say manual) and in the Timing: pulldown select Manually navigate slides now if you use this preset each slide will stay up until you hit the space bar or click the mouse.

Look if you have a full presentation to do you may want to take the time to learn keynote, it can do some impressive things but if you just want to show some images to a group and you have your mac with you that would be my choice.

good luck

Frank, you never cease to amaze us. :-)

Creating a quick slideshow as you suggested worked okay but is there a way to Save the show?

I dup'd the "Slow Dissolve" theme and changed it to "Manually advance slides". I selected a dozen slides but when I created a New > Slide Show, the new Theme wasn't there. Further, changing the Photo Edges theme didn't affect a new slide show with this choice didn't do the deed either. Suggestions?

I read some more on the topic and understand that there is a "Play Slideshow" (Shift-S) and a "New>Slideshow", which creates a "slideshow album". The former seems to have the 'manual advance' feature but I couldn't find it in the latter.

The paragraph at the bottom of page 683 of the PDF manual suggests that you may want to create two slideshows, one for a presentation and one for a Q&A session afterwards. I'm still at a loss about how to SAVE a show that you advance manually. (Yes, I know you can maneuver thru a slide show Album with the arrow and space keys, but I don't know how to restrict it from advancing on its own.)

Why do you keep bringing up PNG? Aren't the original images JPEG? Why change them to something else? And is the projector any higher resolution than 1280x1920 (HDTV)? Exporting a Quality higher than 10 is may create a bigger file than an original JPEG. Projecting any higher is wasted and even 8 is difficult to distinguish from 10 without "pixel peeping" with a magnifier. Try a couple of images on your MacBook screen at the screen's native resolution -- can YOU tell the difference? Sooner or later the images are going to get cropped -- you ought to be worried about the projector's aspect ratio and set up your workflow for that. Do you have the correct adapter to connect the MacBook to the projector?

Sure you can Export the files to a folder and import them elsewhere. The above descriptions of the Preview images and settings apply to transfers via the iLife Media Browser but you can choose your own path. Arranging the images in Aperture, the Finder, or Keynote is up to you.

Worst case scenario: Export all your images with a leading sequence number in the file names. Open the folder of images and Select All. Use Quick Look (the spacebar) to open the files on the screen and then its features to expand to fill the screen and step thru the images.

(I've delivered presentations on screens up to and including the IMAX screen in the Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC. You seem to be obsessing about the wrong details. e.g. Do you have a second MacBook?)

This thread is getting way to complicated . We're all here trying to help out, grabbing a few minutes here and there, and to have to read through and try and decipher these long posts is difficult. You really need to try and distill your problem and questions down to a few succinct sentences and only address a single question in each.

Anyway as for your last question

Have we determined that you cannot do a manually forwarded presentation in Aperture?

That was the whole point of my original post. Aperture can do manually controlled ad-hoc slideshows.

I tried to go through your last post and help but honestly it's just to much.

Basically if you need charts and other 'presentation' stuff in your presentation get Keynote. If you're just showing images do it in Aperture as an ad-hoc slideshow.

To connect your macbook to a TV or display you'll need a min-DVI to something cable, the something depends on what your connecting to.

good luck