How to Use Photo DVD Maker Pro to Make Slideshow
Before I reviewed this DVD slideshow software I tried to create slideshow with DVD Photo Slideshow. It works great with most options, but there are some options it needs to add or improve. The following is the process of creating slideshow in Photo DVD Maker Professional V7.80 and hope you can get something useful.
--Install the program
The installation of the program is like most other programs. Just click Next and Next to finish. The setup file of the program is 26MB and it takes one minute to launch.
--Run the program
The main window of the program is divided into four parts. The interface is very neat and you can find what you need to do easily.
The upper window is the panel for displaying folder on your computer as well as the files in selected folder.
The left lower part is to show all photo albums you create in the slideshow, while the right part is to display all photos in the selected album.
Then I start to create my first DVD slideshow.
Step one: Add Photos and Videos
I open the folder called lulu which contains photos I want to use in the first album in the left upper window. All photos in Lulu are shown in the upper right window in thumbnail mode. I don’t want to add all photos in this folder to the album, so I don’t click the “Add All” button but drag and drop the photo I like. I need to create another album to include some video clips since I know Photo DVD Maker Pro supports video clips. I finally find the option under Organize-> Add Video Clips menu to select videos, but this option is not easy to find. There is no obvious buttons for adding video clips.
As you can see below, a new album is created automatically once I choose to add video clips, so it is obviously this DVD Slideshow software can only support adding videos as an individual album not inserting videos to photo albums.
I go back to the first photo album by clicking the thumbnail in above panel in order to edit all photos in the album. We can see some options on the toolbar below. They are grey unless you click one slide in the slide panel to select the slide.
But I found these options are only part of the options for the slide, moreover, some of them are for the whole photo album not the slide. Actually, you can get all customizable options for the slide by double-clicking the slide.
You can see five tabs in the pop-up window: Transition, Pan&Zoom, Text, Artclips, Subtitles and Process. Let’s start from the first one.
Transition
The transition effects determine the way that the slideshow plays from one slide to the next one. I have mentioned before this slideshow software provides more than 300 transition effects for selection. Once you select an effect you will see the preview of the effect in the lower right corner of the window. Remember to tick Custom box if you want to change the duration of the slide and the transition effect.
I changed the both transition duration and photo duration to 5s. You do not need to close the window if you want to edit other slides’ transition. Just click the Previous/Next button on the right side.
After select the transition for all photos, click the Done button to apply your settings. I found another easier way in Transition and Music tab to apply transition to selected slide and I will give explanations later.
Pan and Zoom
Pan and zoom is also called Ken Burns Effect and it makes photos motion. In DVD Photo Slideshow, you can customize pan and zoom in the most accurate way.
Pan is to control the position of the slide horizontally. Zoom can control the size of photo looked. The bigger zoom number you use, the larger the photo looks. The Rotate setting makes the photo rotate to different angles. The feature I like most here is the Copy Position and Paste Position. The two buttons save lots of time when I want to use the same customizable pan and zoom to most of photos in the album. What I need to do is copy the position of customized effect and then go to the slide I want to use the effect and click Paste Position.
Text
We need text sometimes to describe the photo so that viewers can know what we want to express in our photo slideshow more easily.
We can decide the text font, size, color and effect. If you just need to add same text to all slides, click the text you have input and then click Add Selected to All button at the lower part of the window. I also want to add date to the slide, and then I found this Macros text option. Click the button and I saw selections, such as file name, file date and file path. It is cool and I chose File Date and then click Add Selected to All buttons. It’s done and I have added date to all slides in the album. Smart programs always let us do less but gain more.
Artclips
Frankly, I don’t need to add some fussy artclips to the slide, but if you want to add something like a logo to the slide, this feature is helpful. You can use you own images as the artclips besides clips provided in the program.
Subtitles
Subtitles make your photo slideshow like a professional movie, but the defection of the program is also here. I can’ find any options to preview the subtitle I added. I have to wait to see until I play the burned disc on TV. It is no good. It is also frustrated I can’t add too long subtitles since they will be cut off.
Process
This is the last edition you can do for the slide. The Process section provides some basic image editing options, such as adjust image contrast and brightness, but I think the developer forgets one of the most important, removing red-eyes. You know how disappointed I am when I find I have scarlet eyes in a photo I expect too much. It would be more user-friendly if the developer can add this feature. .
After finishing all photo editions, I go to the nest step: modify the whole album by adding music, and choosing album theme.
Adding Background Music
The DVD slideshow software can support music in mp3, wav and unprotected wma music. You can import music from CD or by recording. I have tested all methods and they works.
Add MP3 music
I have some plain mp3 music on my computes, so I click Add button to select the music in the pop-up file browse window.
Rip tracks from CD
Inset the CD and then click Ripper.
Tick the track I need and click Extract to rip it. The volume of the CD audio can be adjusted before the extraction. This option avoids the ripped song is too loudly. The ripped tracks will be saved in WAV format and you can even open them outside the program.
Record Sound
This feature helps when you need to add some kind of narration to the album. Click the Record button and you will see a pop-up window for recording. Select the record device you have, such as Microphone. Then click Start Recording. I will give more detailed explanation later when I added recorded sound to individual slide.
Match music and slideshow
After I added all music I want, I found they are too long to match the slideshow. I have two methods to solve this: one is to click the Sync button in the program to force the slideshow to match the music, but this will make the photo duration become too long; the other is to trim the music to fit the slideshow duration. I chose the second. Double-click the music in added music list and I saw a pop-up window for trimming. Play the music and confirm where I would like the music to start and end. The next is to play the music and click the Start Point and End Point buttons to trim music. In fact, I realized I can drag and drop the music from the added music list onto the slide which I like the music to start from to truncate the music.
Now I come to the final part, adding narration to the slide. This option is hidden in so many options and I can’t find it without reading the help file. Click the duration time on the slide in Transition and Music tab and I found the option.
I am excited to find the program allows me to synchronize the recorded sound to the slide by clicking a button. It is really good.
Choose Album Theme
I finished all works for adding sound tracks. Now, it is time to choose an album theme for the first photo album. There are 80 themes for my selection, but most of them look too cute and I need a more professional one, but it doesn’t matter until I found I can add titles and credits to the album. The titles and credits make the whole a whole photo album like a complete story with prologue and ending.
Edit DVD Menu
I think DVD menu templates provided in the slideshow software are better than album themes. There are two kinds DVD menu templates. One is still and the other is motion templates. I chose a one called Vacation and I love its color. I then edited the onscreen text on the menu, including album title and the slideshow name. All these text editions can be done in Edit tab.
The lack of editing album thumbnails decreases the fun that the menu page can take. If I can change the position and size of album thumbnail on DVD menu it would be fantastic.
The DVD menu is an optional feature and you can remove it from the slideshow in Menu Navigator tab. Simply uncheck Use DVD Menu option to use no menu in your slideshow.
Burn the slideshow
Among various output formats, I chose to burn the slideshow on DVD so that I can play the created slideshow on TV.
Choose DVD Video Disc in the drop-down list of the output format and then select the burner I use. I have a wide screen TV, so I selected 16:9 for the TV correction. For TV system, both PAL and NTSC are available.
Click the Burn Now button and my slideshow began to encode. After 30 minutes, I enjoyed my test slideshow on TV with my family. The show looks amazing.
The program is a really a promising one, but there are a little work the developer needs to do, especially the feature for editing video album. The current version can only support adding videos but no editions can be made, such as trimming videos and adding background music to the video. Anyhow, the program works wonderfully if you just like to turn still photos to eye-catching photo slideshows album.
