Resolution Setting for Editing Slide Show

[teds300]

New to forum and digital... so excuse ignorance! Spent many years in military Combat Camera and am now a dinosaur in photography all of a sudden!!!

I need help in selecting a resolution setting for my camera. It is a Canon Powershot 720IS. I shot quite a few photos on a European trip and tried to assemble them in a slide program using the Canon software, Microsoft software and Sony editor to make a slide show DVD. In all cases, it was impossible to make the photos load and sequence as I tried to edit them.

I have been told that my file sizes are too big for the process and I should have shot at a lower resolution. Is that the case? If so, what resolution should I use? Also, can someone suggest a tutorial on this subject? Also, can someone suggest a good editing program for the purpose. I have a decent book on digital photography but can't find a clue in it. The end use of most of my photos will be DVD for slide show type viewing. Occasional printing (8x10 maximum size) would be a secondary use for the images.
I plan to eventually graduate to a digital SLR after I have learned some digital principles (hopefully to use some of the fine Takumar lenses that I own!).
Many thanks for the help!

[SmartWombat]

I have been told that my file sizes are too big for the process and I should have shot at a lower resolution.

I would not shoot at a lower resolution, if the files are too big then you can edit them and save them as a smaller size.
I use Lightroom for loading and processing.
The edit in Photoshop CS3.

I always keep the highest possible resolution as the starting image.
Either a RAW image from the Canon (G9, 20D, or 1D) or the largest possible JPG from the Panazonic LZ5. I think of it like the negative, and keep them safe.

But I've not tried slideshows at all, so I can't advise on the process for that.

[drg]

Welcome to Photography Review!

What needs to be done is to "Resize" your images to a smaller set of dimensions. For the purposes of a slide show on a DVD, the longest side will probably not need to be more that 2000 pixels at most, and more likely you will find that 1000-1500 on the longest side/edge is more than sufficient.

As Paul (SmartWombat) indicates, make copies of all your original image files and only 'operate' on copies. This way you can always start over with no loss. The joy of digital photography!!

Specifically what software are you working with and what book are you referencing?

Experiment with about a dozen or so photographs in their native size/form to see if the Slide Show program is working like you believe it to be operating and, then, try with more photos.

A smaller number of images will generate the slide show more quickly. Many programs with 100 or more photos may take minutes to actually render a final slide show. It only gets worse with more 'big pics'.

Be sure to test the final product before burning it to a DVD, and again, try a small one first to verify all the settings before commencing with large scale operations.

I know you will have many more questions, feel free to ask and there are several people here who will do what they can to step you through the whole process.

Best wishes and again, Welcome to PR!

[GB1]

Photoshop is the industry standard for image editing, but it is expensive and is probably for more advanced users. Adobe Elements is the little brother of Photoshop and should be fine for basic / intermediate stuff. I like Corel PhotoPaint myself.

You can resize your images in most any image editor. But always save the smaller image as a different file, not overtop the original. You always want to keep the maximum size and unedited original. E.g, if the original is named 1234.jpg is quite large and you resize it to 800 x 600, save the resized version as 1234_800pixels.jpg.

There's tons of tutorials on resizing. Just do a web search. Here's a few: http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tuto...r/bicubic.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu5adJfxuhw

A freebie image editor is GIMP. Go here for Windows: http://www.gimp.org/windows/

Oh and since resizing can soften an image, make sure that you sharpen your images a slight bit after resizing them. Just don't overdo it and oversharpen them, because it will look terrible (use your best judgment on that, and post here for feedback).

G

[Skyman]

I find it very odd that your file sizes are too big as all slideshow software and video editing software that I know of will automatically handle differing file sizes when creating slideshows.

what exactly are you planning to do in the slideshow. I make slideshows all the time for work and mostly use adobe premier pro. It has an automatic feature that will scale a photo or selected photos to the frame size you are using. this can save you hours of work resizing copies of your originals.

You can of course resize your pictures to the default frame size you are using. (this is going to vary if you are exporting as a widescreen or 4:3 video and what format you are exporting (pal, secam, ntsc, hd or blue ray) photoshop has some automated tools that will resize a bunch of photos automatically, however if you don't have photoshop almost any image editor will do it for you. when using this method i like to make my photos ever so slightly larger then my output size so that I have a bit of room to zoom in our out and animate photos by moving them left or right so that the slideshow doesn't feel so static.

I suspect however that you are not using the right software for the job. If you run a pc as long as you have a licensed copy of windows you can download photo story from microsoft for free. if you are on a mac iphoto will automate the process of making a slide show for you anyway. I still prefer to use a video editor such as premier pro, vegas, final cut etc but these are expensive and can be complex to use for the uninitiated. both photostory and I photo take a lot of the hardwork out of making slideshows and still offer a suprising degree of control. The one downside to photo story is that it saves the video as a .wmv file wich most dvd burning programs don't like. The simplest way around this is to open the .wmv file in movie maker (also free if you have windows) and save it as a .avi file in the format that you will use for your DVD. In my case this is DV AVI PAL, but will probably be DV AVI NTSC if you are in North America. You will then need to load this file into your dvd burning application before you can watch it on your dvd player. if you are happy to watch it from your computer there is no need to convert the .wmv file to .avi

let us know how you get on.

[teds300]

Thank you all for the responses! I will need to review them several times to make sure I "get it" properly. The resize option is one that I was told would be helpful and I need to work on that concept and get it down. I usually edit travel slides into a show...can be 100+ images. I don't need to do much fancy stuff...I'd just like to edit, sequence and adjust photos so I can see them on my large screen TV. Might like to do music, effects at a later time when I have better grasp of the basic concepts. I will pursue the suggestions here and would welcome any further comments. I'll keep at this. This looks like a lot of fun when you get it rolling!!!
Thanks again! TED