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Knight Digital Media Center Multimedia Training Soundslides By Jeremy Rue For updates and discussion on this tutorial, visit: http://kdmc.berkeley.edu/tutorials/using-soundslides/ Introduction Soundslides is a slide show authoring program that was created by former photojournalist Joe Weiss in 2005. The application took the journalism industry by storm and quickly rose to become an industry standard for audio slide show authoring. Soundslides is a desktop application, which means you have to download it on to your computer. It's available for both Mac and PC and comes in two versions: a basic version which runs $39.95 and a pro version that costs $69.95. (November 2007). Also, a plug-in to export your slideshow as a Quicktime movie is now available for an extra cost here. (Mac OSX only) The trial and full versions of SoundSlides can be purchased and downloaded at http://www.soundslides.com (Note for UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism students: A liscensed version of Soundslides Plus is installed on all the computers in J-School newsrooms.) Some of the benefits of Soundslides include: An incredibly simple-to-use interface Very small learning curve, most of it is drag-and-drop Outputs files in Adobe Flash format, a very common Web format that works cross platform It was built for journalists Some of the drawbacks of Soundslides : No video integration Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center Soundslides 1

Using SoundSlides

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Page 1: Using SoundSlides

Knight Digital Media Center Multimedia Training

SoundslidesBy Jeremy Rue

For updates and discussion on this tutorial, visit:http://kdmc.berkeley.edu/tutorials/using-soundslides/

Introduction

Soundslides is a slide show authoring program that was created by former photojournalist Joe Weiss in 2005.The application took the journalism industry by storm and quickly rose to become an industry standard foraudio slide show authoring.

Soundslides is a desktop application, which means you have to download it on to your computer. It's availablefor both Mac and PC and comes in two versions: a basic version which runs $39.95 and a pro version thatcosts $69.95. (November 2007). Also, a plug-in to export your slideshow as a Quicktime movie is nowavailable for an extra cost here. (Mac OSX only)

The trial and full versions of SoundSlides can be purchased and downloaded at http://www.soundslides.com

(Note for UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism students: A liscensed version of Soundslides Plus isinstalled on all the computers in J-School newsrooms.)

Some of the benefits of Soundslides include:

An incredibly simple-to-use interface• Very small learning curve, most of it is drag-and-drop• Outputs files in Adobe Flash format, a very common Web format that works cross platform• It was built for journalists•

Some of the drawbacks of Soundslides :

No video integration•

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Runs a dynamic slide show from a folder of files, so it only works on the Web*•

* This means it is generally not easily sent by e-mail, burned to a DVD, or used for other presentationpurposes.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Preparing Your FilesOnce you have purchased, downloaded and installed the Soundslides program fromhttp://www.soundslides.com, you can begin the process of creating an audio slide show.

But before you even launch the program, it's important that you prepare your files for import. Soundslides willhandle a lot of the heavy work like resizing and ordering your images, but there are a few things it can't do.

Preparing your images

Soundslides WILL:

Resize all of your images for you• Allow you to order them any way you wish• Take care of file naming and linking• Retrieve any embedded caption information•

Soundslides will NOT:

Color correct or adjust the contrast/brightness of your images• Crop or allow you to crop your images• Give you a way to edit photos among hundreds of photos•

This means before you even launch Soundslides, you should first choose only the photos you intend to use inyour slide show.

You should color correct or adjust any images that may need correcting, and crop images to preference. Theresolution size doesn't matter since they will get resized by the program. Just make sure you images do notbecome any smaller than 640 pixels (or the largest size you intend on using.) Put all of your photos in a singlefolder. You will tell Soundslides where the folder with all of your images are, so you should create a folderwith ONLY the images you have selected for your slide show.

Soundslides only accepts .JPG files. Also, you should never check the "Progressive" option when savingimages from Photoshop or any other photo editing program. Your images will not show up if this is selected.

Preparing Your Sound

Preparing sound is extremely important in Soundslides. Soundslides is built as an audio slide show program,so if you are using the standard edition, audio is required. Only Soundslides Plus will allow you to createslideshows without audio.

It's important to note that the length of your slide show will be determined by the length of your editedaudio track.

This means that preparing your audio can be a tricky process. For example, if you have five minutes of audio,you have to determine how many photos you intend to show over the course of five minutes.

Example

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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5:00 min of audio / 30 images = 10 seconds an image (too long!)

There are no hard-and-fast rules to the length of time an image should be displayed, but the general consensusis three to seven seconds with three seconds being somewhat quick (very little time for the viewer toexperience the image) and seven seconds being on the long end (the longer an image appears, the "slower"your presentation will ultimately feel, even it's short in total length.)

Out of the box, Soundslides accepts only .mp3 audio files. If you wish to convert from a .wav file or anotheruncompressed format, please see the next section on converting your files, or you can follow this link toconverting your files to mp3 using iTunes:http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/audio/soundtrackpro/mp3convert/

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Converting Audio to MP3 in SoundslidesSoundSlides does have the capability to accept uncompressed .WAV and .AIFF files and convert them to.MP3 for you. This method requires some very basic setup the first time to install an MP3 audio encodercalled "LAME." Despite its name, LAME is the de facto open-source mp3 audio encoder on the Web.

When you first launch SoundSlides, it will ask you to either create a new project, or load an existing project.At this window, click on the help menu and select LAME Audio Encoder.

A window will appear on the right of the screen asking you to download and install the LAME audio encoder.

You must be connected to the Internet for this step to work. First click on the Download LAME button.

The LAME encoder will automatically be downloaded to your Desktop.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Next, simply follow the instructions by clicking Load LAME. An open dialogue box will ask you to locatethe LAME file, which is appropriately titled "LAME" and should be on your desktop.

Once you have selected the LAME file, your version of SoundSlides will be ready to accept .WAV or .AIFFfiles for import. SoundSlides will convert these file types to .mp3s automatically upon import.

You will only have to set this up once. If for some reason you cannot load LAME, or the third-party serverthat hosts LAME is not working, you can follow this link to converting your files to mp3 using iTunes:http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/audio/soundtrackpro/mp3convert/

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Creating a New ProjectCreating a new project in Soundslides sounds easy enough, but it is important to know how Soundslides savesyour files.

When you first launch Soundslides you will be given this window:

When you select "NEW" you will first be asked to save your project.

Soundslides creates projects as a project folder filled with a series of files. It will hold all of your images,sound, data and eventually your published project.

If you move to another computer, or wish to send your project to someone else, you must send them theentire folder.

One thing to note is that Soundslides never manipulates your original photos or audio. When you import yourfiles, Soundslides automatically creates duplicates and saves them into this project folder.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Importing Photos And AudioImporting audio and photos into Soundslides is so easy, this section is almost pointless. The interface prettymuch explains it all:

There are two main buttons. One will allow you to select the folder with all the images you plan to use inyour slide show, the other will allow you to select your audio file.

The folder that contains your images should only include the edited images that WILL run in your slide show.Soundslides is not a photo editing program, and you should not load in your entire shoot.

Custom options

You may have noticed a dialogue box on the left for additional options. This allows you to create customsized slide shows. You can also change the size later in the program.

You may wish to create custom sized slide show presentations if:

You are embedding your sound slides project in a container and it needs to fit just right• You are working with unorthodox image proportions (i.e. all of your images are panoramic)• You are concerned about controlling the exact size of your images and the two default sizes are not toyour liking.

Soundslides, by default, will automatically create three slide shows of different sizes: 600 x 450 pixels, 400 x300 pixels, and 200 x 200 pixels.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Building Your SlideshowOnce you have imported your audio and photos into Soundslides, you can start editing your slide show.

Soundslides gives you the ability to:

Adjusting the timing of each image• Reordering your images• Add or remove images from your slide show• Adding captions to each of your images• Customizing the interface of Soundslides• Re-import your audio track• Some advanced settings, including working with templates• Adding movement to your slides (Plus version only)• Adding lower thirds titles to your slide (Plus version only)•

(The links above take you to the corresponding sections below on this page)

Adjusting the timing of images

To change the length of time an image appears, simply drag the ends in the timeline at the bottom. You canclick the play button at the bottom of the screen to preview the slide show's audio track and adjust the timing.

Remember: Soundslides is built so that the length of your slide show is determined by the length of youraudio track. You cannot readjust the length of your audio track in Soundslides. If you want to make changesto your audio track, you will have to make these changes in an external audio editing program and thenre-import the audio back into Soundslides.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Reordering Images

Reordering images in Soundslides can be a little bit tricky to figure out on first glance. That's because youcannot reorder the images in the timeline itself, rather you must reorder them in the slide viewing space.

Simply drag a thumbnail with your mouse arrow to a new location. The images will automatically reorder inthe timeline at the bottom of the program.

Adding/Removing images: This window also has options for adding additional images or removing imagesfrom your slide show. (Note: The "Add Image" option allows you to add single images, and you don't have toadd an entire folder. Also, throwing images away doesn't delete the original image, only the copy Soundslideshad made for the slide show)

Adding captions to each image

Captions can be added to certain points of your timeline, to supplement your photos with additionalinformation. Captions are optional, and the viewer must click a link to see them. This means you should notexpect the viewer will read the captions, unless they are compelled to get additional information from eachimage.

Click on the Slide Info tab and the Details sub-tab. You can type the caption in the field. If you want to addcaptions to every image, use the next and back buttons to cycle through each image.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Customizing the Interface

You can click the "Test" button at the bottom of the program window to see how your slide show will appearas a published product at any time. You may notice that there is a title at the top of your project that iscustomizable. There are also various color and other options that can be customized. Click the "Project Info"tab near the top right to see some of the option you can fill in:

You can also change the colors and look of your slide show:

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Some of the key features to note:

If you don't have captions or credits, you might want to un-check those boxes.• You should consider whether you want your slide show to play automatically, or have the view clickplay.

Decide if you want the "Headline" title bar at the top to appear.• Scrubber preview toggles a feature that allows the viewer to see preview images throughout the slideshow as they drag their mouse over the playhead (aka scrubber).

Re-import Audio Track

If you ever want to change your audio track, simply click on the "Audio" tab at the top right and select a newaudio file. If you have previous installed the LAME mp3 encoder, then this option will allow you to uploadyour .WAV or .AIF files which Soundslides will convert to mp3.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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IMPORTANT! If your new audio track is longer or shorter than the existing track, it will change the lengthof your entire slide show and throw off all of the transitions. You will have to redo the timing of your entireslide show.

Advanced Template Settings

Soundslides has some options for advanced template settings. Those include custom templates that willchange the appearance of the slide show viewer. You also have options to change the fonts and transitions ofhow each image fades into another.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Adding movement to your slides (Plus version only)

To add movement to your slides, select the Slide Info tab and the Movement sub-tab. The left image showsyou how the animation of zooming will begin, and the right image shows you how the animation will end.Move the sliders below each image to adjust the start and stop points of the animation. You can test theanimation by pressing the play button at the bottom of the window.

Adding Lower Thirds Titles (Plus version only)

The SoundSlides Plus version allows you to add what are called "lower thirds" titles to the slides. It'simportant to know that the lower-thirds feature in SoundSlides is not attached to any specific image, rather itis based on the timeline. This means if you want to add some titles to your project, it should be one of the verylast steps you do, because if you reorder the photos, the titles will not follow.

To add a lower third, first click on the Audio tab, and the Lower Thirds sub-tab. Here are the steps toperform when adding a lower third:

Move the orange playhead on your timeline to the desired location you want to add the lower third(typically at the beginning of a slide).

1.

Click the Add button to add a new title.2. Add the person's name and title.3. The in point will specify the exact time the title will appear. It will automatically be filled in with thecurrent location of the playhead. You can manually adjust this value as well.

4.

The duration represents the amount of time the title will stay on the slide in seconds. You will haveto manually adjust the duration, mostly by trial-and-error, to see how long you want the title toappear.

5.

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Click the play button at the bottom to see the lower third appear and how long it will last. You will have tomanually adjust the duration based on the length of the slide.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Publishing Your Project To The WebOnce you have made all of the edits to your slideshow, you can now publish your project for the Web. Thereare several ways to do this depending on your system. We will attempt to explain some of the more popularroutes to publishing a SoundSlides project.

Video export plugin (Mac OSX only)

By far, the easiest way to publish a SoundSlides project to the Web is to use the new SoundSlides videoexport plug-in. The plugin will create a self-contained video file of your slideshow that can be uploaded tomost popular Content Management Systems, or even uploaded to YouTube.

However, if you use the video export plug-in, you will lose many of the standard features of SoundSlides inyour slideshow, including captions, headlines, titles and movement of slides.

Detailed instruction on how to use the plugin, and the download location, can be found on the SoundSlidesplug-in page.

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

It is currently only available for the Mac OS for a cost of $19.95 (Dec 2008)

Uploading a SoundSlides project to a Content ManagementSystem or a blog

There are several ways to integrate your SoundSlides project into a Content Management System. The processcan vary depending on how the system is setup. For each case however, there are some fundamentalsimilarities to this process.

Step one will always be clicking the Export button after you have completed the project.

This will generate a folder called publish_to_web which has all of the files necessary to display a project.You can rename this folder if you wish, but it is important to keep all of the contents of this folder intact forthe project to work.

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You will need to upload this entire folder and its contents to your Web server. In most organizations, thiswill require the help of an administrator. If you have FTP access to the Web server, then you can upload thefiles yourself, but it is critical to make sure all of the files and sub-folders get uploaded and the names arepreserved.

Next, find the URL to the publish_to_web folder, based on where you uploaded it to.

Example: http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/media/upload/tutorials/soundslides/publish_to_web/

Copy the URL to your clipboard. The SoundSlides Web site make available a very handy utility forgenerating Flash embed code for inserting the project into your content management system. Visit the Website:

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

And paste in the URL to your slideshow (i.e. publish_to_web folder)

The SoundSlides Web utility will automatically generate some Flash embed code based on the URL yousubmit. After clicking Continue, the site will also allow you to specify the size of the slideshow. SoundSlides,by default, exports the slideshow in several sizes. If you are going to embed the slideshow into a smallercolumn or a post, it is likely that you will have to reduce the size using those options.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Copy the code, and you can paste it in to any form on your Content Management System that accepts HTML.MySpace and Facebook are sites that accept this code as well.

Some content management systems have an html mode or require you to place <code> ... </code> tagsaround external code. You should do this if your system requires it. See example below:

Uploading your SoundSlides project into WordPress

While the method above will work for importing a slideshow into WordPress blogs, there are severalthird-party plugins that allow you to upload your slideshow project to the server as a zip file.

The SoJ SoundSlides plugin allows you to compress the contents of your publish_to_web folder (not thefolder itself) to a .zip file, and then upload that single .zip file in the same manner you would an image to your

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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blog. The plugin will automatically extract the files to create your publish_to_web folder.

The WP-SoundSlides plugin is a little more polished, but requires that the user has FTP access to the Webserver. In this case, you would upload your publish_to_web folder, and use a new button on your formattingbar to insert the project into a post.

The SoundSlides Web site also contains tutorials on how to embed a slideshow into a post manually using themethods described above. They include tutorials for both WordPress and Blogger.

Uploading to a static Web page

A static Web site refers to a Web site that was built manually. You may have used a program likeDreamweaver to do this. It's considered "static" because the content is not automatically updated, as the casewith a Content Management System. There are three methods to uploading your SoundSlides project to astatic Web site.

Method 1) Linking to the SoundSlides project

Soundslides actually creates a pre-built Web page for you when you export. If you need a simple way to getyour SoundSlides project up on the Web, then you can simply link to the generated Web page.

Click the "EXPORT" button at the bottom of your project window. (This is necessary)

Once you click this button, SoundSlides will gather all of your images and audio, and create a"Publish_to_Web" folder inside your main project folder.

The contents of your publish_to_web folder will look something like this:

The entire contents of your publish_to_web folder IS your final exported project. The files may vary fromthose listed above. For example, you might see a custom folder if you elected to specify a custom size.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Simply create a link to the index.html file that is inside your publish_to_web folder. This eliminates anenormous amount of hassle of embedding the actual project within your page.

To do this in Dreamweaver, highlight the text you want to link to your Soundslides project (you can alsohighlight elements like a photo), then click the folder icon on your property inspector and choose theindex.html inside your publish_to_web folder.

Example:

It's important to note: You MUST include all the files in your publish_to_web folder on the server you arepublishing your Web project to.

Method 2) Copy-and-paste the embed code

This method is considerably more difficult, especially for people who have never dealt with HTML code. Ifyou need to embed your Soundslides project in a Web page, here's one way to do it:

First, upload your publish_to_web folder and its contents to the Web server you will be using. Next, find theURL to your project and visit the following site:

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

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

The SoundSlides Web utility will automatically generate some Flash embed code based on the URL yousubmit. After clicking Continue, the site will also allow you to specify the size of the slideshow. SoundSlides,by default, exports the slideshow in several sizes. If you are going to embed the slideshow into a smallercolumn or a post, it is likely that you will have to reduce the size using those options.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Copy the embed code.

In Dreamweaver click on the "Split" view icon.

You will notice that your main project area splits into two segments; one for code and one for the design.Whenever you click in the design portion of your Web site (the bottom area), the cursor will automaticallymove to that corresponding location in your code at the top. This is how you find the spot in your code thatyou need to paste in the Soundslide's <embed> tags for your project.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Once you have found the location where you want to paste your project, paste in the embed code from theSoundSlides utility site into the code window at the top. In Dreamweaver, you will not see the slideshowappear at the bottom, rather you will see a grey box that serves as a placeholder for your slideshow.

Method 3) Using Dreamweaver's Embed function

Dreamweaver has some pre-built Flash embed options built into it. With these tools, you can embed aSoundslides presentation. This method is a little tricky and is designed for advanced users of Dreamweaver.

In Dreamweaver, click on the INSERT menu at the top of the screen, then select MEDIA --> FLASH.

A dialogue box will appear asking for your flash file. Navigate to your publish_to_web folder and select yourSOUNDSLIDER.SWF file (not the index.html file).

IMPORTANT! Do not click OK, instead, you must set two parameters for Soundslides to work correctly.Press the "Parameters" button. This will allow you to add two very important parameters: The size of yourslide show, and the method it uses to process data.

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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For the parameters you want to set:

"size" with a value of "1"

"format" with a value of "txt" (or XML if you are using the latest version of soundslides)

(note: If you wanted to use the smaller version of your project, set the size to value "0")

Click OK.

You are almost there, just one last step. Dreamweaver cannot determine the size of this Flash project since itis dynamic (flexible). So you will have to set the size yourself. In the property inspector, set the size to 640width and 533 height. (note: if you are importing the smaller version of your project, you will have to set thesize to 420 by 383.)

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

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Test your movie. Remember, you will need to keep all of the files in your publish_to_web folder intact inorder for your slide show to work.

About this Tutorial

Tutorial presented by the Knight Digital Media Center at the University of California, Berkeley

© The Regents of the University of California

Soundslides Tutorial | Knight Digital Media Center

About this Tutorial 24