Soundslides Tip Sheet

PROS AND CONS OF SOUNDSLIDES

PRO: It was designed for journalists PRO: Short learning curve. Easy to set up and use.

o CON: Easy that is, until you have to export to the web!!!!!!!!! The “Publish to Web” and “Folder of Files” is a pain in the neck.

o But MACOSX has new plugin for Quicktime – haven’t tried yet. PRO&CON: Files exported in Adobe Flash format PRO: It is used by NYT and most NPR stations. CON: **Unlike FCPro, cannot integrate with video..(yet.)

CON: Must download LAME plugin if you are using WAVs for AIFFs. SS uses only MP3s for audio and JPG/JPEG photos.

PRO AND CON: SS will resize your images PRO: SS allows you to reorder the images

o But you have some control using S, M, L, Custom sizes PRO/CON: SS will prepare the file folders and links for you.

o But it’s an outdated way of publishing to web PRO: It will recognize captions from photos. CON: It does not allow you to edit photos once they are uploaded. CON: You need the LAME plugin if you want to use WAV or AIFF

audio.

GETTING STARTEDFirst…

Download Soundslides Trial Version

www.soundslides.com

….or spend $40 for basic and $70 for “Plus” version(See end of document for differences)

Know about the “LAME” encoder. It allows SS to encode WAF and AIFF to MP3.…avoid it by using MP3s.

http://lame.sourceforge.net/

Think Before You Start…

Know your story before you upload photos or audio into SS. Think 2.5 to 5 minutes. Think 3 to 7 seconds per slide. How many photos do you have? How long is your audio – or how long shout it be?

o Think about how to order photos to match audio.o Or, think about how to edit audio to match photos.o Watch your favorite audio slideshows and consider the timing.o

Edit your audio and export it into an MP3.o Use Audacity, Audition, Reaper, other first.o Soundslides is not an audio or photo editor.o

HINT: Think about 3 to 7 seconds for each photoo Five minutes of audio is long!! Can do 30 slides * 10 seconds

or 60 slides at 5 sec each. Plan accordingly.o

SS, for our purposes, should not be over 5 – more like 2.5-4.

CHOOSE AND PREPARE PHOTOS BEFORE OPENING SOUNDSLIDES

Don’t load your entire shoot!!!! Think first.. Select photos to tell your story using a picture manager

o Such as Microsoft Office Picture Manager, Picassa, Adobe Bridge, Lightroom?

Order them and name them to line up sequentiallyo 1-xxx, 2-xxx, 3-xxx

Crop, Resize, color correct, adjust brightness, etc.o Using Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Other free software.o Soundslides will resize the photos, but you should crop and

resize yourself before import. Save edited photos all in one folder in a directory that you will

remember. o Nothing else can be in the folder. Only your selected JPG

images. NOTE: Know what size you want to export for your website. Make sure

photos are AT LEAST that big when you import them.

If you don’t have Photoshop or something similar, see:

www.Pixlr.com

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

IPhoto

EDIT YOUR AUDIO BEFORE IMPORTING IT INTO SOUNDSLIDES.

Keep in mind:

Your audio track length determines you story length.o

Estimate based on 5 seconds per photo – ballpark.o A photo “generally” doesn’t stay on the screen less than 3 seconds

or more than 7 seconds. Use Audition, Audacity, or other audio editor to finalize your MP3.

BALLPARK ESTIMATE:

A 3-min audio track needs more than 10 photos – maybe 30, 35 or 40?

# of MINUTES# of

Photos 2 min 3 min 4 min 5 min10 12 18 24 3020 6 9 12 1530 4 6 8 1050 2 4 5 6

20 photos * 5 seconds = 100 seconds….just over 1.5 minutes.

o Edit the audio or remove photos once you have an estimateo Otherwise you’ll edit audio multiple times!

CREATE NEW SOUNDSLIDES PROJECT

Select “NEW” Choose a location on your computer Name your project

o When you name your project and tell Soundslides where to store it, a folder is created there using that project name as its label.

Now you will import your audio and photos:

Photos must be JPGs.

Audio must be MP3s.

Audio people import audio first.

Photographers might import photos first.

SS creates more folders inside that project folder for storing photos, audio, captions, and other SS info.

Your original photos are not touched, SS makes copies of them.

CUSTOM OPTIONS

Soundslides, by default, will automatically create three slide shows of different sizes: 600 x 450 pixels, 400 x 300 pixels, and 200 x 200 pixels.

PUBLISH TO WEB

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO DO THIS – and none are all that simple…..

This is NOT fun if you are not accustomed to using FTP sites or host sites!!!!

But you can do it.

Or you can buy the Video Export Plugin for MacAnd you will lose some of your captions, headers, etc.

http://support.soundslides.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=41

To Export –

EXPORT THE SLIDESHOW

This will create a folder called “Publish to Web” in the projects folder.

Then upload that new folder to your public folder on your web server using FTP – such as Filezilla…

FREE FTP SOFTWARE for Mac of PC:

http://filezilla-project.org/

THEN!!!!!

USE this utility from Soundslides to get some “embed code” for your web blog or site or CMS:

http://www4.soundslides.com/apps/utilities/

Paste the URL to your slideshow (i.e. publish_to_web folder)

Hit “CONTINUE”

***THIS IS ANOTHER CHANCE TO CHANGE THE SIZE OF YOUR SLIDESHOW!!!!

If you don’t get an error, you’ll get this:

COPY AND PASTE THE EMBED CODE into your blog, site or CMS – just as you would do with Youtube or Vimeo.

Then adjust the page design using HTML or Dreamweaver or your favorite editor. If you don’t know HTML, you can cheat by copying from one of your other webpages – then plugging code above into it.

OTHER “easier” CONSIDERATIONS: PLUGINS!!!!!!

You’ll have to pay for the easiest plugins, or use Soundslides.com solution, which does not come with the software.

If you have a server and domain, you can try these:

GO TO SOUNDSLIDES.COM for detailed instructions.

To purchase: Think about what you need. Do you like Ken Burns? Only top 3 features below come with cheaper version.

Feature Soundslides Plus SoundslidesAudio slide shows ✓ ✓IPTC caption importing ✓ ✓Template control ✓ ✓Non-audio slide shows ✓(Importan for

photogrphers)Full-screen playback ✓Image Movement (Pan and zoom)✓(KB)Lower third subtitles ✓Cost $69.95 - Buy now $39.95 - Buy now