[Lightstalkers] New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:35:16 +0000

Soundslides now has greater capacity to reproduce camera movement and so on -- has anyone had a chance to try out the new version and what do you think of it so far?

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:25:36 +0000

Previously the best multimedia slide shows, such as can be seen at http://www.mediastorm.org could only be achieved using Final Cut Pro but this new incarnation of soundslides can achieve similar results, seems to me. Not counting video, that is.

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:54:07 +0000

The pan-and-zoom stuff ("Ken Burns effect") is a nice addition, but it doesn't change the basic equation for Soundslides. The program was designed to be simple, and to keep your presentation simple, and these are great virtues. At the end of the day, the most important component to a Soundslides (or Mediastorm) presentation is the audio, and photographers tend to forget that.

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:14:18 +0000

john, i think we have talked about this before,so ignore me if i am repeating myself. the best programme for assembling slideshows is adobe after effects. when you are finished,just dump the whole thing into fcp(i guess you can also drop a completed piece into soundslides,but i never tried),and fine tune the music. if you want inspiration,i would look at films,not other slideshows,and see how a good editor works to achieve different moods etc. as for the ken burns effect,i wouldn't bother myself,or use it very sparingly and only if the material absolutely demands it. and preston is correct,badly mixed or innappropriate music/voiceover is a killer.you have to experiment,try different things,and hope for a visit from the random gods of chance.(you know the very famous scene in kubricks 2001?the one with 'thus sprake zarathrusta as the soundtrack?when he was editing it,that piece of music just happened to be on the radio,and he noticed how it worked with the images,so used it)

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:17:52 +0000

"At the end of the day, the most important component to a Soundslides (or Mediastorm) presentation is the audio, and photographers tend to forget that." Word.

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:09:50 +0000

It's interesting that this has come up. I am working on a slideshow as I write this. I've been playing around with it for the past month and the nice thing is that once the images are loaded you can change the timing for the images, but, if you change the timing on one then you have to move all the images and it's very difficult to drag the cursor back and forth. This is if you decide to add audio. How would one send this out to a magazine? In the folder it creates sub-folders with the images and a file called index.html. Do you put that on a CD and send the whole thing to a magazine explaining how to open up the slideshow?

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:20:10 +0000

Srinivas, You touched on my only disappointment with Soundslides - there really isn't a good way (to my knowledge) to feature a soundslides piece off-line. The swf file requires an internet browser window for display, and Soundslides doesn't create a stand-alone file. The best way to showcase these slideshows is online - I've sent links to folks. hope this helps.

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:28:49 +0000

So, would I have to upload to my site and then send the link out? Sorry, I know this sounds really basic but...

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:53:38 +0000

you don't have to upload anything, a link is a link doesn't matter if it's online, a local network or on a cd. you could do a 'read me first' html file with a link or set soundslides to automatically open when the html file is open.

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:57:58 +0000

Thanks. I'll try that. Would I be able to put this on my gallery page on LS?

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:03:51 +0000

Fotomagico is another app to look into for similar ease of use but it exports out to a myriad of formats as well as a stand alone player. http://www.boinx.com/fotomagico/overview/

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:36:33 +0000

You are forgetting some really important about soundslides: You can not manage really well issues like sound, I mean sync sounds with images, quotes from the interviewed. Now, I am using Adobe Premiere for do my slides with sound, like ma cuser does with Final Cut

Re: New Soundslides: Any Opinions?

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:54:43 +0000

Srinivas, You could also just output your Soundslides project to a QuickTime movie and put that on a CD. I was having this issue at a paper I worked at where readers wanted copies of the audio slide shows as a video. Thankfully there's now a plug-in to help you do this. It has it's limitations though. Here's a link to the SoundSlides documentation for this: http://www2.soundslides.com/support/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=41 When I've sent out projects on CD I either pull the index page out of the "ready_to_publish" folder and link it to the files in its folder. Requires some understanding of HTML. Then I title that index page something like "click_here_photostory" For mulitple projects I make an HTML index page with simple links to each "ready_to_publish" (which you'll want to rename) folder, that way you don't have to mess with the code for each slideshow HTML document.