Enhanced Slideshow in Lightroom By Joan Dolson, February, 2016

Introduction This document outlines the steps used to create an enhanced slideshow in a demonstration presented to COPS

members.

Preparation 1. Import and “develop” your images and videos in Lightroom. (This was not covered in the demo).

2. In the Library module, create a collection of your photos and video clips for the slideshow as described

in part 1 of the demo. (See the “Creating a Slideshow in Lightroom” document).

3. Order the slides and clips.

Slideshow Workflow 1. In the Library module, fill in the metadata fields that you wish to display in the slideshow. These are

under the Metadata heading in the toolbar on the right in the Library module. Empty fields will not

show, so you don’t need to fill in every field on every slide. Here are some suggestions:

a. Sublocation: If this is a travel slideshow, you may want to fill in the location in this field for this

first slide at this location. This could then serve as a header slide for a short series at that

location.

b. Title: This field can be used to put a title on certain slides to display different information. Since

the various text fields can be positioned in different locations on the slides and in different fonts

and colours, you can use the different fields to display text in certain locations on the slides.

c. Caption: This field can be used for captions on certain or all slides.

d. Rating: You can give each slide a star rating and make that appear on the slides.

2. Go to the Slideshow module and view the slideshow templates provided under the Template Browser

heading in the toolbar on the left:

a. Caption and Rating – Displays the slide with a border and a grey background. Shows the rating at

the top right and the caption field below the slide. It’s best to have a caption for each slide

otherwise the caption at the bottom will show empty quotes (“”).

b. Crop to fill – Will crop the slide to fill the entire screen. Note that this preset will not handle

portrait orientation slides. Rendering will freeze on the first portrait orientation slide, so you will

need to eliminate those from your show for this preset.

c. Exif metadata – Displays the slide on a black background with the default Lightroom ID plate

above the top left of the slide, the creator field contents at the bottom, the image date at the

top right and the camera settings at the bottom left. The ratings will be shown in the top left

corner of each slide. This type of slideshow would be best for critical review of your photos.

d. Simple – Displays the slide on a black background with the ratings in the top left corner of the

slide. Similar to the simple slideshow produced in part 1 of the demo.

e. Widescreen – Similar to simple except the images are sized to fill widescreen.

3. Choose the template that you wish to use as a starter.

4. Further customize your slideshow with the panels for setting on the right hand side of the interface in

the Slideshow module.

a. Options

i. Zoom to fit frame zooms to fit the entire frame this the photo. Does not seem to work

properly with portrait orientation and may not render.

ii. Stroke border puts a plane border around the photo. The border thickness and colour

can be controlled. The border snaps to the image and does not crop or leave black

areas.

iii. Cast shadow creates a shadow around the frame with various adjustments to customize

the appearance.

b. Layout

i. Show guides can be used to show or alter the placement of the image in the slide frame.

This is useful for positioning your image to one side so that you can place your text fields

and ID Plate outside the image for professional portfolio displays. Deselect the Link All

box to allow offset positioning.

c. Overlays

i. Identity plate allows you to select or create an identity plate to put on your slideshow.

You can also create an ID Plate from the edit menu, which will allow you more

positioning controls.

ii. Watermarking allows you to select or create a watermark to show on every slide.

iii. Rating Stars displays the stars from the ratings metadata field on the slide.

iv. Text overlays allows you to display other metadata fields or custom text on every slide.

For the metadata fields, text will only show on the slide if the metadata field contains

text. Fields that show <empty> in the slide editor, will not show after rendering. The text

overlay settings selected will apply to the particular overlay selected. To place a new

text overlay, click on the “ABC” button in the overlay tools and select the overlay. Move

the overlay to the position you want and adjust size, colour and font as you wish.

(Mouse clicks in green below).

d. Backdrops

i. Colorwash allows you to specify a color to the backdrop that displays outside the slide

and you can make a gradient from one side to the other.

ii. Background image allows you to select a background image to show outside of the slide.

e. Titles

i. Intro screen with another identity plate and customizable color.

ii. Ending screen with another identity plate and customizable color.

f. Music: Add one or more mp3 music tracks. Best to choose music which will run the length of the

slides with default playback settings – 6.5 seconds per slide. Don’t forget to include the intro and

ending screens.

g. Playback

i. Automatic lets Lightroom set the playback.

ii. Manual allows you to fit the slides to the music so that the visual and the audio ends at

the same time. You can also sync slides to music so that the slides change on the beat.

Doesn’t work will with video clips.

iii. Audio balance allows you to favour the sound from video clips or the music.

iv. Pan and zoom will apply some movement to the slides.

v. There are options to repeat the slideshow or use random order.

vi. There are also options for the playback quality.

5. Save the show as an mp4 video selecting a video preset suitable for the display device.

a. As video

b. As pdf

Results The resulting slideshow from this demo is named “Cuba-Demo” and is posted on the COPS website under

Members → Resources http://copsphotography.org/members/links-and-resources/

All of the text overlays include text indicating what type of field or overlay was used for the text. Examples:

Watermark: Demo for COPS is a watermark

Id plate Joan Dolson is an ID plate

Sublocation: Havana comes from the photo sublocation metadata field in the Library module

Caption: Moocher comes from the caption metadata field in the Library module

References Adobe Lightroom Help → Slideshows

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/topics.html#dynamicpod_reference_13

Additional Resources Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC - Advanced Video Slideshows https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/how-

to/slideshow-with-music-pan-zoom.html

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC - Build a Slideshow with Still Images and Video Files

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/how-to/building-slideshow-still-images-video.html

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Help - Work with Video in Lightroom

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/video-lightroom.html