Making a slideshow in iMovie

iMovie 11 tutorials:

http://help.apple.com/imovie/

http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#imovie

and also these:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/imovie_09_stone.html

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/imovie_09_stone.html#interface

There are many ways to produce slide shows using iPhoto, iMovie or iDVD and some limit the number of photos you can use (iDVD has a 99 chapter (slide) limitation).

If what you want is what I want, namely to be able to use high resolution photos (even 300 dpi tiff files), to pan and zoom individual photos, use a variety of transitions, to add and edit music or commentary, place text exactly where you want it, and to end up with a DVD that looks good on both your Mac and a TV - in other words end up with and end result that does not look like an old fashioned slide show from a projector - you may be interested in how I do it. You don't have to do it my way, but the following may be food for thought!

Firstly you need proper software to assemble the photos, decide on the duration of each, the transitions you want to use, and how to pan and zoom individual photos where required, and add proper titles. For this I use Photo to Movie. You can read about what it can do on their website:

http://www.lqgraphics.com/software/phototomovie.php

(Other users here use the alternative FotoMagico: http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/homevspro/ which you may prefer - I have no experience with it.)

Neither of these are freeware, but are worth the investment if you are going to do a lot of slide shows. Read about them in detail, then decide which one you feel is best suited to your needs.

Once you have timed and arranged and manipulated the photos to your liking in Photo to Movie, it exports the file to iMovie as a DV stream. You can add music in Photo to Movie, but I prefer doing this in iMovie where it is easier to edit. You can now further edit the slide show in iMovie just as you would a movie, including adding other video clips, then send it to iDVD 7, or Toast, for burning.

You will be pleasantly surprised at how professional the results can be!

To simply create a slide show in iDVD 7 onwards from images in iPhoto or stored in other places on your hard disk or a connected server, look here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1089

Hi

As Klaus1 writes. Just one more thing.

Most people wanting to do a SlideShow also as interested in getting best possibly Quality. There are Two major limits to this.

• DVD - is as standard - interlaced SD-Video quality (as on old CRT-TVs) no better no worse (but way from the resolution on Your Mac screen 1/4 or less)

• iMovie'08 or 09 or 11 - Are not tools to use as they degrades the final DVD even more by not delivering - but only every second line in the picture (and there are NO way around this as this happens when going from Event's to Project's and can not be mended later)

So I use

• iMovie HD6 or FinalCut (any version) or FotoMagico™

• Verbatim DVD-R (Brand is very important when doing Video-DVDs) - DVD-R plays on more and even older DVD-players

• BURN SPEED - BEST IS NOT BEST ! ! - I set it down to x2 or x4 to get as few burn errors possibly ! IMPORTANT - as the DVD made at full speed usually doesn't play at all or just only BAD.

Good Luck !

Yours Bengt W

The easiest way is to put your photos into an album in either iPhoto or Aperture. The , in iMovie, go to the photo browser and navigate to your album. You can drag the whole album into your iMovie project. Each photo will have the default length that you set in File/Project Properties. You can change the length later if you want.