Lightroom Tips

Tip – Better Slideshows

One of the biggest complaints about Lightroom 1 and slide shows was that when you started your slide show, the person viewing your it always saw the first slide onscreen before the slide show even started. For example, if you’re showing a bride and groom the photos from their wedding, when they sit down, they see the first image onscreen without any music or anything which totally kills any emotional impact. Well Lightroom 2 has the option to create an intro screen to help out in this area. So, go ahead and set up a title slide (or just leave it black, but turn on the title slide feature in the Titles panel). Now, here’s the tip: When you make a slide show presentation for a client, before the client is in front of your monitor, start the slide show, and as soon as it appears onscreen, press the Spacebar to pause it. Now when your client sits in front of your screen, they don’t see your first photo—they see a black screen (or your title screen). When you’re ready to begin your presentation, press the Spacebar again and your slide show starts. Hope it helps you out some time. Have a great weekend.

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4 comments

  1. Mike Guilbault 7 September, 2009 at 22:53 Reply

    I’ve used that technique a few times and it works quite well. My only problem is that sometimes the music doesnt’ even play once the slideshow starts. It’s an intermittent problem, as far as I can tell, that is driving me nuts!

  2. John Harris 2 September, 2009 at 09:05 Reply

    Hi Matt, this tip is great for stopping the images but any music associated with the slideshow seems to continue to play unless you manually pause it via iTunes. Is there an easy way of pausing and starting both???

    John

  3. Patrick DS 31 August, 2009 at 14:03 Reply

    OK guys, totally off-topic but it’s really good news for those among us (including Matt) who run Lightroom (2.4) on an Intel-based Mac. I’ve just upgraded my 3-year-old iMac from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Costs peanuts (and a 45 minute installation) but you certainly don’t get monkeys! Everything starts up and runs so much faster! Including Lightroom! So far I’ve only done some tests with the adjustment brush on a few 18MB RAW files, and I will do some more heavier editing later tonight or tomorrow, but local editing is so much more smoooooooooth! (FYI: I’m not paid by Apple, I’m just a photographer – and a poor one as well)

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