Creating a Photo Slide Show

These days, we are lucky to be able to make creative things using computers in the comfort of our own homes. Although scrapbooking is a very beautiful way of keeping our pictures intact, safe and lovely to look at, we have the option of saving our pictures on CD's. The good news is that we can make very interesting presentations like slide shows complete with captions and background music. We do not have to print these pictures, or pay for printing outside. Save them on a disk and they are ready for viewing anytime you wish to.

Using the Adobe Photoshop Elements, here are a few steps on how to make a slide show presentation of your family pictures.

Go to Adobe Photoshop. Click "View and Organize Photos". Normally those that you have uploaded from your digital camera are saved here. This means it would be easy for you to choose the pictures that you want to work on. In compiling pictures, you may want to go by date, by theme or whatever category you feel is best.

Click "File", then "New". Choose "Creation". Click "Slide Show" as this would be the tool that you would need on this project. Choose "Custom Slide Show".

Once you are there, you can begin the fun. Choose "Add" and you may either choose photos from the organizer or from a folder. If for instance you want to make a creation out of the pictures of your child's birthday party, click on all the pictures that were taken on that special day. If you choose from the organizer, you just have to click on the picture, or on the small box under each picture, and a small check would be added to indicate the inclusion of the picture. Do not worry about deleting those that you feel you do not want to include. Even if you have added them already, you could just right click on the picture and click on "Delete".

Now, when the pictures have all been added, you would see a number and a letter "s" under each picture. That stands for the number of seconds each picture would appear during the slide show. Automatically added next to each picture is the transition or the kind of effect or style that you would want each picture to appear. You would see an arrow on the right of each transition, and once you click on that, you would see more than 15 different creative styles that you could choose from. You are free to click on each of them, so that you could see the effect of each option.

The trick is to choose different transition styles for each picture to make it more dramatic. Take note that there is also a number and the letter "s" under each transition. This indicates the number of seconds that each picture is going to "move" using the transition you would choose. Supposing you have placed "5s" for the first picture, and then "5s" for the checker board transition. Once played, the first picture would appear for 5 seconds, then the next picture would appear creatively like a checker board. The appearance of picture #2 would appear using the transition for 5 seconds, before it becomes in clear view (and not moving).
It becomes more fun when you try to add the music. To do this, click on "Edit", then "Edit Audio". Things would be easy if you have songs on your hard disk already, placed on your "My Music" folder. You may arrange the songs that you want based on the order of the pictures also. For your child's birthday party, you may want to add a rather soft music for children, if you are presenting the first few pictures like the start of the big day, when the cake was delivered, or when you were preparing the balloons, and the decorations. Once you go to the next set of pictures that show the actual fun during the party like the games, eating, and all the partying, you can add a fast and fun song.

The good thing in adding background audio to your pictures for the slide show is you can clearly see the length (in exact minutes and seconds) for each song, once you have clicked the "add audio" for the inclusion of that song. This would be a big help in your editing, because you could see how many seconds each picture appears, and the length of each transition. You could add all these seconds to jive with the length of the song that you want. If the song is a little long, you may adjust the number of seconds for each picture so that the song would end at the same time with the showing of the picture that you want to be the last to appear for that segment. This means the new song would start at the exact appearance of the picture that you want to introduce the second segment of the slide show.

To make each photo more memorable, you could add text on each of them. Simply click on "Add Text". You may add the time or date of that event, or put whatever captions that you wish to. Make them look nice by changing the font style and the size. You even have the option to place your text horizontally or vertically. If you have typed the text and chosen the font style and size but would want to change it again, simple double click on the text, and you may edit it.

This could be a fun project. Although it may take time as you get the hang of it, and editing may be a little tedious, all the hard work would be worth it. Once you have saved your work, put in on a disk and show your family and friends, you might want to proceed to doing another slide show with your latest pictures. You can even do it for your friends, and give them as gifts. Remember, pictures make us keep wonderful memories. And to present them in a very creative way makes things lovelier.