Adding Backgground Music To a Bunch Of Pictures....

[Soccerdude]

Hi to all you Mac fans. I have a bunch of family pictures that I want to add background music to through a loop and burn it on a DVD-R. How do I go about doing this and what program do I need.

[ftaok]

Hi to all you Mac fans. I have a bunch of family pictures that I want to add background music to through a loop and burn it on a DVD-R. How do I go about doing this and what program do I need.
There are a bunch of ways to do this, but with Macs, using iLife is the best way.

The first step is to set up the photo slide show. You could do it with iPhoto or iMovie (and even iDVD). Personally, I like to use iMovie as I feel it gives you more control. But iPhoto will work also.

When you have to slide show set up, use iDVD to set up the DVD and to burn.

Scour the 'net for some tutorial on those applications. Apple's website will have some tips and pointers as well.

good luck.

[Mark Booth]

1) Place photos into their own Album in iPhoto
2) Create a Slideshow of that Album in iPhoto
3) Place desired music in its own Playlist in iTunes
4) In the Slideshow in iPhoto, use the Music option (bottom of the window) to select the appropriate Playlist in iTunes
5) Set other iPhoto Slideshow settings to your liking (fades, time for each photo, etc.)
6) Verify that your Slideshow looks and sounds how you want it
7) Under "Share" in iPhoto, select "Send to iDVD"

Mark

[Soccerdude]

1) Place photos into their own Album in iPhoto
2) Create a Slideshow of that Album in iPhoto
3) Place desired music in its own Playlist in iTunes
4) In the Slideshow in iPhoto, use the Music option (bottom of the window) to select the appropriate Playlist in iTunes
5) Set other iPhoto Slideshow settings to your liking (fades, time for each photo, etc.)
6) Verify that your Slideshow looks and sounds how you want it
7) Under "Share" in iPhoto, select "Send to iDVD"

Mark Your folks loved as child I guess. Thanks.

[gmwedding]

Using iPhoto and iMovie for AV slide shows is great for 95% of Macs users and will produce better results, more easily, than most Windows applications. Apple's tools are very good and easy to learn.

However, while I use Apple's tools for quick-and-dirty shows, I also use the oddly-named FotoMagico, which has some very nice professional slide show features and an especially nice interface for setting up custom (precise) pan-and-zoom effects for each still photo in a show. It also allows you to customize your music soundtrack with multiple songs keyed to start and stop with specific photos in the show. This results in more tightly edited, professional shows.

The music and the pan and zooms with Apple's slide show tools are basic and not customizable, though they are automated and simple to use.

[AntnyMD]

However, while I use Apple's tools for quick-and-dirty shows, I also use the oddly-named FotoMagico, which has some very nice ...
Wow, that one piece of software costs as much as _the entire_ iLife suite.

[gmwedding]

Well, FotoMagico is a professional-level tool, and even at $79 (I think), it still is at a consumer-level price point when compared to all other profesional software. And believe me, no other vendor offers anything like FotoMagico's elegant interface for setting up pan-and-zoom slide shows.

[tommylotto]

Fotomagico is excellent, but I got it from MacHeist for $49.00 in a package that included a bunch of other programs as well. I don't think the special is still going on however.

Fotomagico is very simple and intuitive to use and produces very professional output. It can output your slideshow to any resolution. It can even output for DVD or HDTV movie files. It is much better than iLife -- which I cannot even get to output in fullscreen on my 1920 x 1080 monitor.

[Doug_Eldred]

A similar "light" slideshow maker with adjustable Ken Burns effects comes with Toast, or used to. The full version isn't terribly expensive either. I think the bundled one is called "Motion Pictures" and the full one is "PhotoToMovie".