I was impressed with another photographers (Gary Oakley oakleyphotography.com) slideshow which happened right after dinner was served. I can't imagine better advertising for the dollar (especially if the bride elects to pay for this option) and was wondering who was also doing this and what program they were using to do this.

I was also wondering what programs are the best to make a slideshow on a DVD with music. I love the ease PS CS can make an Adobe Acrobat slideshow so fast and simple but there is no way to attach music.

I use a Mac.

For the slideshows at the reception we just use Mac's screensaver program and it's working great! We then used to use a program that came with our CD/DVD burning software (Toast Titanium) called "Motion Pictures" to make DVD slideshows but have recently converted back to a PC program that I came across a long time ago called "Memories on TV" - Picture To Tv is the webpage and it has a few more custom options that I like.

Slideshows are magic!

I run a similar set-up as DJ, although I'm actually integrating iMovie in my post-event slideshow in combination with Toast. They work well together.

The real question though is who are your "friends" that are cropped out of your avatar?

Aaaahhhh Dana. You are very observant. They were two young beautiful blondes that worked with a bride I recently shot in Bisby AZ. That shot was actually after all the real work was done in Big Kate's Saloon in Yombstone AZ (Maybe the real work was yet to come??).

Back to the post. The screensaver looks like a quick easy way to do it and I will probably use i movie when all is said and done in post production.

Question...what can Toast do that a Mac with all the basic programs can't do?

I actually do the slideshow at the reception thing once in a while as well, usually only if the reception has a location that I think would get enough traffic and lighting would work well for the display. I simply do a super fast select of images from the day using ACDSee then launch it into a slideshow. I don't do any music as most often there is already a DJ or band playing. Once in a while I'll even grab a couple of reception/dancing shots and drop them back in to the slideshow so they're only minutes old.

Total select is only 15-20 images often, sometimes not even that. Reasons for liking the slideshow? Nothing beats near real-time compliments of the images! *smile* Plus I lay out the pile of wallet images from the engagement portraits that has my website address of where the evenings images will be displayed... always helps get people motivated to visit the site.

WOW!!! Great idea!!! You're a genious!!! Wallets from the engagement session! I might need to try that out!

Strawpimp!

Feel free to pass on the names and numbers of any ladies you would recommend!

Toast can burn CD's that are more compatible with PC users and it comes with a pretty nice slideshow program as well. imovie is probably more work than you need to do. Checkout Motion Pictures that comes with Toast. It's super simple and quick.

My girlfriend and Dana have probably never met and probably have nothing in common yet they both wanted to know who the two blondes were. Life is funny, huh?

I can send her the link to the

QUOTE

...Maybe the real work was yet to come??).

if you'd like

Wallets from the engagement session at the wedding... wasn't sure how common that idea was, I saw it first in probably... 1992 or so, took me a while to add it to my standard wedding but it's certainly worked out pretty well for me. Two samples of would be these:

http://www.ddphoto.cc/lj/Wedding-Cards.jpg

If these were marketing secrets, I gladly share them! To add even more to this, one of my assistants who's now gone out on her own outdoes me by another step, she offers refrigerator magnets of a very similar design.

DJ

The real work was of course keeping them away from me so I can keep up the quality wedding photography I am so famous for.

sure! ...I hope you got paid well...sounds like that wedding was a lot of "work"

Check out iViewMediaPro ... I 've switched my slideshows to it and am absolutely stoked. There's no comparison once you get the hang of the program.

Dana,
Can you time-sort images with iViewMediaPro? If so, then is there still a need for PhotoMechanic? Have you found yourself using one program more than the other? I'm trying to streamline the workflow with one or two applications instead of using several (including iPhoto & iMovie). Also, does iView offer enough options to produce a slide show with fades, pans & music to replace iMovie or Toast? Any information would be helpful and appreciated.
Chris

Dana gave me a quick demo of iView and it did have some good categorizing options and time sorting but it didn't have the zooms and fades in the immediate slideshow (at least I didn't see the option) which would cause me to continue to use Mac's screen saver for onsite shows and then for Mac's I'd stick with Toast for the DVD shows.

It did seem to have loads more options than PhotoMechanic so for the similar price It seems that iView is a much better way to time sort your images if you're on a Mac. PC users stick with ACDSee. Cheap and can now do all the sorting and categorizing that these other programs can do. They also just added some cool new "comparison" tools to quicken the deleting process.