Adding captions to pictures or to slideshows?

If you use iDVD to create the slideshow you have the option to use the titles and comments in iPhoto as titles and captions. It is very easy if you assemble the photos in an iPhoto Album. In iDVD you just drag the album from the Media Pane to the Slideshow window, and iDVD creates the slideshow with the same order as the album. The downside is you can only use one transition, and there is no Ken Burns effect. The upside is you get the titles, it is easy to do, and you get the best resolution (compared to passing an iPhoto slideshow to iDVD or rendering in iMovie).

If you create a text slide, all you have to do is get it into iPhoto, and you can use it in your slideshow the same way you use any photo. I used Photoshop Elements to create slides (saved as jpegs, imported into iPhoto) which I placed into my iMovie project and burned with iDVD. They looked really good. After experimenting, I found the best still image size for my widescreen (16:9) movie was 869 X 480 pixels. For a standard 4:3 slideshow, try 768 x 576. Read Matti Haveri's helpful page to learn more about the math involved in creating slideshows: http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/SVCDon_aMacintosh.html#slideshow especially part 7 of the slideshow section.

How do you add titles and comments in iPhoto?

Thanks!!!

In the lower left corner of the iPhoto window is a set of tools: info, calendar, and keywords. Click on the little i to open the info pane. Click on a photo's thumbnail to select it. It's information appears in the info pane. You can click and type on the title, date, time, rating, and comments to edit or add them. If you select an entire roll (View > Film Rolls) you can edit the roll's title, date, and comments.

There is some handy information in the Apple iPhoto multimedia tutorial: http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/iphoto/

Since iPhoto only will show the title of a slide, you will have to change the title to whatever text you want to display in the slideshow. However, if you export that slideshow to iDVD and burn, those titles/comments will fall outside the TV Safe area and be lost to the viewer.

The other option is to use a 3rd party editor like Photoshop Elements to add text to the image and then save as a jpg. You have to setup PSE to be the editor of choice in iPhoto's preferences.

You could create the slideshow in iMovie which has numerous types of titles you can add to each photo.

But, if your final destination for the slideshow is to play thru a set top DVD player on a TV set your best option, IMO, is to create the slideshow entirely in iDVD. Much better final image quality and you have the title/subtitle capabilities.

Do you Twango?

TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.