Photo Slideshows: PhotoPresenter, FotoMagico and Online with JAlbum

My friend Don Kot from Geva and Nazareth College asked:

I was looking at the photos you took for our production of ELEGIES at Nazareth. They came out great (as usual!)……I was thinking of putting together a slideshow of sorts for our Dean, chairperson, and our tiny cast…..What do you suggest? Slide.com? or something like that?

Thanks! And Happy New Year!

….Don

Here’s what I suggested…

For a computer show:

If you have access to a Mac, this is great software for easy photo shows… Boinx Software’s PhotoPresenter.It’s only $20. It has tons of slideshow templates from clean and classy to tacky, so you’ll have plenty of options… Just choose wisely, young Jedi!
To get really fancy and do a pro-level show with everything timed and all, they make ‘Fotomagico‘, which I love and use for client work. You can output to iPod or DVD as well as play from the laptop. So I’m totally backed up in case of hardware failure… just play it from my iPhone or a DVD.

When I’m doing something very text-heavy and with photos, I uses Apple’s Keynote. Before I found PhotoPresenter, the easiest thing was just using Apple’s iPhoto. It’s free on all Macs. At the lower left of the iPhoto window is a ‘Play’ button to play any album as a slideshow… that creates a show that you can view immediately or tweak the settings on.
If you are on the PC side, I’m not really sure… I know lots of folks just use PowerPoint, which does the job, but isn’t very elegant or user-friendly for shows. Just stay away for cheesy transitions.

For a web-based show:

Slide.com is nice if the goal is a small Flash slideshow on the ‘Net. Very easy to learn. Lots of options. It’s grab your photos from Flickr and other sites. Watch out for cheesy templates.

But for doing bigger web slide shows, having more display options (and some shows with real class), I like JAlbum. It is designed for posting web galleries and shows. It’s donation-ware, and I liked it enough to pay. It’s available for Mac, Win, Linux, etc.

You download the software, then the ’skins’ which are the different ways to present the images (gallery of thumbnail images, or slideshows, etc).
Autoviewer  is a standard on the ‘Net and PostcardViewer  is fun. PhotoStack  would also be good for a big slideshow online. Just check out the online examples of the ‘most downloaded’ and the ‘highest rated’ skins and you’ll see the ones I mentioned.
You would have to invest a bit more time to learn the JAlbum settings (or find a geek actor to help). If you wanted to do lots of this sort of thing, learning JAlbum is pretty easy and really worthwhile. And once you get the settings where you like, you can save that as your default.

PS- for anyone using Apple’s Aperture, what I do most often is just use the Flash Album Exporter plug-in. They also have an iPhoto version, but sadly, the developer isn’t working on it any more, so someday it’ll break. Hopefully someone else will create a similar plug in. It’s great to create and export a Flash show right from Aperture.

Hope that helps everyone in creating shows… send me a link when you create something cool!
Cheers for your ‘09!Ken

Learn with Ken… FIxing Blurry Photos

I just wanted to plug the ‘Learn’ forum section of my web site… It’s where I archive tips and questions that relate to digital photo, doing business with us, Photoshop, etc.

The advantage over there is that it’s all by category and easier to get around than a blog format. Visit my Learn area HERE

Unfortunately, due to spam-bots, I can’t open the forums up for your questions and discussions… but you can always e-mail me questions (contact info is on HuthPhoto.com)

Ooh, the CD longevity topic is great… and I update the Digital Camera Questions topic when clients ask which of the newest cameras they should buy.

Here’s an example from today:

Q: My client/friend Katie asked a great question:

While in the Outer Banks a few weeks ago, my sister took a picture of my family, and it’s a great shot (Xmas card worthy), but it’s blurry for some reason. Do online programs like KodakGallery, Snapfish, etc have tools that help fix that? I guess more importantly, is that even fixable in t[/color]he first place?

A: Ken Says:

You know, that’s a great question…

Sadly, focus is one of the things that really can’t be changed. If something is a little out of focus, there are tricks to make it look more in focus (I take things like glasses and line areas like brows, hair, etc and give them more contrast in Photoshop buy ‘burning’ them)

There are ’sharpening’ filters and ‘definition’ one in Apple’s Aperture. But they are to make things sharper that are already in focus. Mainly the goal there is for them not to get even softer through the printing process… but when you apply it to a blurry photo, it really doesn’t help.

I remember my first weeks at RIT, my prof suggested I go to the chem lab and ask them for some ‘refocusing agent’… Now, I’d been shooting 10 years at that point and knew he was trying to pull one over on the country-boy Freshman… there’s nothing you can do about bad focus… bummer. But I’m sure someone stands in line every year, waiting to get refocusing agent for their bad photos.

I do always suggest to people to take 3 shots of everything (or more!) so this happens less.

There is a new lens setup that focuses at many distances at once and records that… maybe someday snap cameras will inherit that technology and give you a second chance??

ExpoDisc Custom White Balance Tests

Digital camera Auto White Balance is just awful. I’ve never used it on any brand of camera I’ve owned (including my current Canon EOS1D M3). Normally I can guess at a close balance and use the manual setting for Flash, or ‘Cloudy’ on most outdoor shoots. I’ve played around with setting the Custom WB using a white, black or grey card and rarely like the results…. enter the ExpoDisc .

The quick review is that it rocks.

It even tweaks bounce flash color to be more accurate and handles mixed lighting nicely. Because florescent lights are banned from my house (forget going green… I totally hate that harsh, ugly color!)… so I haven’t tried that yet. I can’t wait to, since I shoot in many labs, etc where the florescent mix is weird. Or in totally nasty environments like the Sodium Vapor lights at RIT. This will get me so much closer to correct color on the shoot, and I’ll need less tweaking in Aperture.

Examples of my (very) informal tests.

Auto WB (Natural light from a window, plus the TV glow of a Mario game!) It’s kind of close.

Cloudy WB (what I would have used before)

ExpoDisc Custom WB (much cleaner… look at the white controller and socks)

This is a different day, and different lighting…

Auto WB

ExpoDisc

(This Expo shot is a touch magenta, but I was rushing and be I could have gotten a better reading)

Final Example:

Cloudy WB (the green leaves were trashing the color)….vs…..ExpoDisc

To use it, you put the camera on Manual Focus, and Auto WB. Put the ExpoDisc on your lens and go to where the subject is and aim at the light source, back toward the camera. This is a classic light-metering setup for incident metering (and for you photo-geeks, Incident is why it gets a better read than Reflective metering does off of a grey card.) The ExpoDisc can also be used as a light meter…cool. They have some nice video tutorials HERE. (and know, they haven’t paid me to rave about them! I’m just happy to get better color)

Then in camera, you set that frame as your Custom White Balance and you are off an shooting. For studio Flash, Handheld, you just need to trigger with a remote and get that reading from the subject area facing the flash. I can’t wait to try using it to clean up some off-white ceilings that always taint my bounce flash colors! People really paint ceilings odd colors…

I’ll shout if I have any other notes. I’m very happy so far. It’s a bit pricy for the non-Pro shooter…. Adorama has my size for $105. It’s good to fit your biggest lens, then you can just hold it over smaller lenses. They also have less accurate, less expensive ‘amateur’ versions… as long as your camera cad do a Custom White Balance, you can use this. See HERE

PS: To preserve marital harmony, here’s a shot of my lovely Lisa (and one with Oliver), when I haven’t drug her outside for a photo test…

FIRST Robotics & Tiltviewer

I just wrapped up editing the FIRST Robotics FInger Lakes Regional photos (it was a blast, BTW) and I thought that gang of cool geeky youth would dig this new gallery style from Airtight Interactive . It’s a 3D grid effect and can load photos from a folder, or grab them from your FlickR account by tags. Try it out, it’s sweet. I particularly like the ‘next gallery’ photos falling effect. Visit the gallery HERE

Event Books

I love doing these event books because they really show off the whole range of photos from an event and let me add the creative detail photos and ‘quiet/behind the scenes moments’ that I love to shoot.

If you hover over the example above, there are some captions here and there. Also, clicking on it will take you to a web page where you can see all of the photos. The first shots are from the Highland Hospital Gala and later are from RIT. I create the books in Apple’s Aperture software.

I’m doing 7 books for RIT Alumni from the even I shoot tonight, so you know what I’ll be doing Monday.

And the price I charge right now is just $100 to create the book (which honestly takes 2-3 hours or more), and then $100 per printed, hardcover 8.5×11″ book. I’m sure in time those prices will have to go up, but I’m thrilled clients are getting into the idea more and more.

My Live Audioconference on Aperture & Lightroom…only $99

This is a great setup, you don’t even have to leave your office to attend!

You can listen in on an audio conference I’m teaching about getting started with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture. This kind of software is the first (and desperately needed) innovation since we got started with digital photography. Now you can be totally organized, totally backed up and edit and tweak your images at light speed.

I’ve never worked harder on a presentation, and you’ll walk away knowing the reasons you need this new type of software. You’ll also get all the facts so you can easily decide on buying Aperture or Lightroom. Finally, I’ve been all over the net and compiled the best resources on the topic, so you don’t have to spend days Googling and wading through junk.

And with Lightroom on a discount until late April, it’s the perfect time to learn about this software.

This class will save you money:
You’ll save the price of the conference by learning about it now, before the Adobe offer expires (Adobe is offering $100 offer, per LR package for a limited time). And you could really save $300 or more, since you’ll be choosing the right software for you, and then you’ll be ready to jump right in when you get it.

I’d love to have my clients attend and they’ve made the price fantastic. It’s even lower than when I teach for a client on-site… only $99 for as many folks as you want to listen in at your office!

Info and signup HERE

So please sign up and shoot me a message (or comment below) that you’ll be listening in!