7 Steps to Create Amazing Slideshows

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A Slideshow Can Be Made in Literally Minutes.

Have you thought about making a slideshow with all of those pictures you love looking at with your family and friends? You had the best of intentions?

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However, when you first get home from vacation and have taken 500 pictures (maybe not that many) of your children or grandchildren, how often do you go back and look at them by just scrolling through your folders?

Making slideshows with your pictures is super easy, and you don’t have to be an expert at iMovie or Photos to do any of it. Apple has made it doable for us all.

If I Can Do It, So Can You.

Truly, I’m no expert here, but I can teach you how to create a great slideshow, and I think you’ll be happy with your project.

The quickest way is to make an impressive slide show is right in from your Photos app on your Mac, or iOS device.

You do need to know a little bit about the Photo app and how to put your pictures into folders. You need to read,
7 Steps to Organize & Declutter Your Digital Photos. You’ll find it very helpful, really.

Why Make Slideshows?

So first, maybe we should create a short list of reasons to make a slide show to get your creative juices flowing and choose an occasion to practice with.

1. Your family and friends will be very impressed and will love them
2. Holidays of course
3. Birthdays
4. Weddings
5. Baby’s first year
6. Vacation
7. Parties ( New Year’s Eve)
8. Trips (different than vacation)
9. Graduation
10. Celebration of Life

Step 1

First, create a new folder in the Photos app. You need to make your new folder in My Albums, not in your shared folders. If you don’t know what that is, then you don’t need to worry about it.

Open the Photos app, and in the sidebar find “My Albums. Then, click the little plus (+) sign on the right and choose Folder.– Give it a and click OK.

Step 2

Now, the fun begins. To get started, go through your pictures and drag them to your new folder. You don’t need to worry about what order they are in right now, you will fix that later

You can have as many as you like and honestly the more the better because the pictures don’t repeat as often.

For example, I have a Christmas Eve slide show with way over 100 photos and then I have a  birthday party with 25 pictures and videos combined. (We’ll talk about videos in a minute).

My advice right now is, for practice only,  is to put about 20-30 pictures in your folder to start and then add more when you’re feeling good about your creation.

Another reason to start with just a few pictures is that it’s impossible to start scrolling through your pictures and not get sidetracked and caught up in all of your memories.

Seriously, you could spend hours in that rabbit hole.

Step 3

Now, go to the top menu bar and choose File, then select Create Slideshow.

Interestingly, your folder will now automatically become a “Project”, and you can find it at the bottom of the sidebar.

Next, open your new project and you will see all your photos lined up at the bottom. Now you can put them in the order you want.  
Simply, click on a photo and drag and drop it where you want it to go.

Video

Yes, you can add a video to your slide show along with pictures. Here’s what happens.

Your slide show is playing along with the music and when the video starts, the music automatically softens so you can hear the video – Really awesome.

Formatting

You have some choices to make and they are all pretty fun.

Looking at the options menu on the right of your slide you should see Theme ( little frames) Music (musical notes) and Time ( a little clock)

Step 4: Slideshow Themes

Which theme you choose is important because it determines the transition between your slides, where your text will be for your title.  

Truth be told, I suggest you try them all! You can change your theme whenever you want to.

Personally, I most often choose The Ken Burns Theme because pans in and zooms (try it)

Remember you can change the theme at any time, so mix it up.

Finally, time to add some music. This can be time-consuming if you let it because you probably have quite a few favorite songs that would go perfect with your slide show.

Step 5: Slideshow Music Settings

First, click on the music notes on the right, and hopefully, I will do a good job at explaining the options.

Next, click on the little down arrow next to “music library”. As a result, you should see a selection box with the options of iTunes or Theme Songs.

Choose Theme songs first. Don’t be confused here when you see the names of themes you just finished with. They all have tunes attached to them.

Honestly, this is great. As you hover over each theme a little arrow will appear, and when you click it a theme song will play. Again, I recommend trying them all.

Interestingly, you don’t have to choose the Theme Song that goes with the Theme you chose earlier.

For example, you can have Ken Burns as your theme and choose the music that goes with Reflections.

The next way to choose music is to toggle back up to the options bar and choose iTunes.

Consequently, your iTunes library you have on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone will pop up.
Take your time picking a song, it’s fun. Remember, you can change music any time you want to also.

Step 6: Slideshow Timing Settings

This time, open the clock icon and let’s talk about your choices.

Not surprisingly, I think the options here are nothing short of amazing. Let’s take it from the top.

The first two choices have to do with how you want music and your slides to fit together.

• Fit to Music. With this choice, the slide show will do just what it says. The slides will loop or start over and keep playing as long as the song is playing.
• Custom setting allows you to decide how long you want the slide show to go.
  Maybe you want the pictures paced to be completed in 10 minutes because you are in a timed meeting.

The next two choices have to do with how your slides and your chosen Theme work together.

• First, you choose how long you want a slide to stay on the screen.
  In reality, I almost always choose 5 seconds. Your audience is likely talking and eating while the slideshow is playing and this gives them enough time to see the slide and to comment.
• The second option is to have photos fit the screen you are viewing. Honestly, I always check this box.

I’m going to pause here for just a second to talk about how all of these features will work on mobile devices, as well. You certainly can create your slideshow on an iPad or iPhone.

Mobile Devices

• Actually, every step is pretty much the same as on a Mac.
• Create a folder, give it a name and add your pictures.
• Now, when you open the folder, you can drag and drop pictures where you want them.
• Next, tap “slideshow” at the top of the open folder.
• The slide show will start, but pause it and click the bottom right of the screen, and you will see “options”.
• After clicking “options”, you can make choices for Theme, Music, and Speed.
• Again, if you have trouble with this, shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to help you.

Step 7: Title and Text

If you noticed in my example where the slides were at the bottom of the page, the first slide automatically becomes the title slide, but this depends on the Theme you chose.

Take some time to go back and click the different themes while your slides are at the bottom and you’ll see what I mean.

However, once again, you have some very cool editing options.

Click on any photo and click the (+) sign on the lower right and choose “add text”. A text block will appear on the photo and you can drag and drop it anywhere on the photo.

Now, right-click on the Title or Text on the slide, you should see the menu shown here.

Scroll down to Fonts Size, or Colors and you can change just about anything you want.

If you would like to preview your slideshow, obviously, click preview, then make any changes you’d like.

One more command to know about is the little loop icon on the bottom right. Choose this when you want the slideshow to keep repeating.

The Slideshow is Done, Now What?

Time to share your creation!

You can watch your slide show on any of your Apple Devices, or share onto your TV through Apple TV. You can also Airplay or mirror your slideshow for everyone to enjoy.

What I like to do is display my slideshows right through the Photos app on Apple TV and I can choose music right on Apple TV through the Music app.

Okay, that’s a wrap! I hope you have fun creating and sharing your slideshows. It really is a wonderful way to share your wonderful memories.
Don’t forget to download your free Slideshow Cheat Sheet!

You may have photos from a time before there were digital cameras and you may want to add them to your slideshows. here is how to do it.

Now that you have the hang of it, the sky is the limit. Have fun!
How to Digitize Your Family Memories Like a Pro.

Reference: Creating Slideshows on Mac