Slideshow Sideshow

Argonaut

Newbie Joined: Jul 16, 2012 06:43 Messages: 37 Offline

Solved by

Mar 28, 2023 12:11

I'm finding the learning curve pretty steep with Powerdirector's Slideshow plugin. I've read countless tutorials and viewed Youtube content. I've managed to get close to syncing slides to my music track, but only after hours of trial & error, cdumping previous efforts, changing the number of slides in my presentation trying to match slides & music, and tricking the software by cipping the front off of my music track. Nine times out of ten, I've ended up with not enough slides, or too much music. I end up either having 5- 7 slides repeating themselves at the end of the presentation, or I run out of slides and the music plays on.

Using Slideshow, I find I can not reliably assign the duration of a slide using simple math, like: 3:00 minutes of music = 180 seconds / 35 slides = 5.14 seconds per slide. If I "customize" each slide, assigning it 5 seoncd duration...

Is it easier / better to bring my slides into PD timeline and edit them there? Adding and sliding my music track on the timeline?

One more operation I can't seem to tame in Slideshow is adjusting the movement / direction of the "crop area" when customizing a slide using the "movement" template.

I''ve put a lot of study into this software and I donlt want to give up, but I'd love a slide maker with more intuitive controls.
Thanks for any help and ideas.

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 28, 2023 13:56

I never use any of the "creator" modules (which used to be called "Magic whatevers") for the exact reasons you stated.

In my opinion, they're tools to get content into a fancy-looking video with very little editing effort, but that simplicity comes at the expense of not being able to make the kinds of tweaks you're looking for.

It's SO much easier to put your images on the timeline, ppick a transition (or a set of them), lay down your audio/music track and set the duration of each image as needed. It certainly is more work to initially set that up, but you'll then have 100% control over every aspect of your slideshow.

With time and more experience, it gets even easier and I don't think you''ll ever look back

Argonaut

Newbie Joined: Jul 16, 2012 06:43 Messages: 37 Offline

Mar 28, 2023 14:41

Quote I never use any of the "creator" modules (which used to be called "Magic whatevers") for the exact reasons you stated.

In my opinion, they're tools to get content into a fancy-looking video with very little editing effort, but that simplicity comes at the expense of not being able to make the kinds of tweaks you're looking for.

It's SO much easier to put your images on the timeline, ppick a transition (or a set of them), lay down your audio/music track and set the duration of each image as needed. It certainly is more work to initially set that up, but you'll then have 100% control over every aspect of your slideshow.

With time and more experience, it gets even easier and I don't think you''ll ever look back

Sounds like good advice to me. Thanks.