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Editor's note: In part one of a two-part article on digital slideshows, Dominique James introduces you to Aperture's presentation capabilities, then shows you other options for creating great slideshows with your Aperture images. Slideshows have come a long way in recent times. Maybe we'll tempt you to revisit this medium.
There are many reasons why you'd want to use the Slideshow feature of Aperture. Maybe you want to look at all the photos or a selection of the photos to generally take stock of the output from your photo shoot. Or maybe you want to show a photo to a client to give her a preview. Another reason to use the Slideshow feature is because it's a fast and easy way to present your works publicly in situations like a wedding or a family reunion. It also works well for client presentations, corporate events, product launching, educational lectures, seminars, or workshops.
For the most common slideshow needs, Aperture’s Slideshow function is right on. However, if you're used to the razzle-dazzle of Apple’s Keynote, or if you're looking for the Ken Burns effect of iPhoto to impress your audience, maybe you think Aperture’s Slideshow is too basic for really souped-up public slide presentations.
Luckily, you can easily extend Aperture’s Slideshow functionality by showcasing your photo collection from inside Aperture into other applications from Apple. Apple’s Core Image technology, Aperture’s tight integration into Mac’s OS X operating system, and other Mac consumer-level and professional-level software are available to help you. Here's an overview of how to get the most out of these tools.
Let's begin by learning how to use Aperture’s built-in Slideshow features. There are several ways you can start up and run a slideshow from within the application.
The first, and probably most common, way is to run a slideshow by clicking or choosing any Project, Folder, Album (Smart or not), Web Gallery (Smart or not), Light Table, Book, or Web Journal from the Project panel. Right-click any of these collections of photographs, and a drop-down menu appears with a Slideshow tab.
Your second option is to press Shift-Click to reveal the Run Slideshow dialog box. Another way to bring out the Run Slideshow dialog box (which is the third method), is to go to the main menu Toolbar on top and press File, Slideshow.
The fourth way to call up the Run Slideshow dialog box is to highlight and select several images you want to show from within the images on the Browser Pane (where the thumbnail-size photos of your images are located). Then Control-Click or Right-Click to bring up the drop-down menu, and go to Output, Slideshow. Or, with the highlighted photos, you can execute the command with the keyboard shortcut Shift-S, or you can click File, Slideshow from the Toolbar on top.
Once the Run Slideshow dialog box is open, you can choose from any of the six Slideshow presets: Dissolve, Fade through Black, Manual, Slow Dissolve, 4-Up Slow, or 4-Up Fast. Dissolve is when you want the photos to dissolve into each other during the transition. Fade through Black makes the image fade and disappear before another one is shown and there is no overlapping of images. And 4-Up shows four different images at the same time on the screen in a fixed grid. These are the standard presets you get in Aperture. Most of these presets have been configured to what you're most likely to use. In that same dialog box, you can click the check box to show the file status badges of the photos or leave it unchecked to hide the information about each photo in the slideshow.
There's another option open to you in the drop-down menu of the Slideshow preset: Edit. Use edit when you want to modify any of the existing presets or create your own new presets. Click Edit, and another dialog box opens telling you the parameters of each of the current presets in terms of Timing, Duration, Image Quality, Crossfade, Background, Loops, and even the Music (integrated with iTunes). You can modify either the existing presets or create additional presets (which you can also delete if you want). The lower left corner of this dialog box has the plus and minus signs that let you create new and modified presets or delete presets. The really good thing about being able to modify or create your own presets is that you can tweak them to your personal preference. Maybe you want your slideshow to fit within a selection of music, or you want to change the color of your background. You can even choose to play on the main display only, and have the images fade in and out.
By the way, existing Slideshow presets can be modified or new ones created directly from the Menu Bar of Aperture. Just press Aperture, Presets, Slideshow. Other presets for Aperture such as Image Export, Web Export, File Naming, and Folder Naming can be modified or added from within this section as well.
When you're good to go, and want to run the slideshow, just press Start from the Run Slideshow dialog box. The space bar of your keyboard can stop and start the presentation of your images, and the ESC key can stop the slideshow and bring you back to Aperture.
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