Creating Slideshows In Photos

There are two primary ways to create slideshows in the the new Photos app on your Mac. The first is a quick slideshow that you can start by simply selecting photos and pressing the slideshow button. But you can also create a slideshow project that has many more options. With a project, you can order the photos, add text, set transition options and more. You can also export a project as a video to share on YouTube, Facebook or elsewhere.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. On today's episode let's look at creating Slideshows in the new Photos app.
In Photos there are a variety of ways to start a slideshow. Now there seem to be two main types of slideshows. One is kind of a quick slideshow and the other is the one with all of the details and customizations.
A quick slideshow can be started by going into your Photos Library and digging down into Moments. You will notice that as I rollover the different moments here I get this little control on the right with a play button. Anytime you see a play button it means a slideshow. If I tap it I can see that I've got just some quick options. I can select a theme and I can select music. I can choose from iTunes or certain theme songs that are included. 
So once I have chosen one of these I can hit Play Slideshow and it will just simple play the slideshow. That's really the only options I've got. I can hit the Escape key to exit from that.
Now I can also access similar functionality if I go to an Album. So I'm going to go to the test album here that I've got setup and notice that here I've got that same play button. Now it is on the toolbar here at the top. I have the same options to create a very quick slideshow and just view it on my screen.
Now the more detailed type of slideshow is actually a project. You have many different types of projects like books and such in Photos. You can create a slideshow by selecting an Album or selecting individual photos, or going to the Photos Library and selecting a bunch there. I'm going to just select this Album here and then I'm going to go to File and Create Slideshow. 
It will allow me to name the slideshow. I'm going to use the same name as the album. I'm going to hit okay. Notice that it puts it in a Project section here on the left sidebar. By the way if you don't see this left sidebar go to View and then you can Hide/Show sidebar right there.
So you've got the test album here as an album up here and as a slideshow here. Now I've got more options available to me in this format. First thing is that I've got a list of all the photos I've included and I can use the plus button to add more. I can also drag and drop the photos to reorder them. I've also got this little bit of title text here I can select. Once I have that selected I can actually edit it here. So there is a lot of different things that you can do.
On the right I've also got the ability to select a theme. I can select the music. So it is as before. I can choose from my library or wherever. I can also do some customizations like Fit to Music, customize timing between them. I can change the Transitions and Speed. All sorts of things here on the right with this button. So you have a lot more that you can do when you create a slideshow project as opposed to just a quick slideshow.
You can also play it from here. You can do a Preview and you can also set whether or not it loops.
Another big feature of a slideshow project is the Export button here at the upper right. Here I can select from three different video formats and it will export it as just plain video which means that once I have it exported I can upload it to YouTube or some other sharing service or to Facebook. So this is the ability to kind of share a slideshow as a video. You can also have it automatically sent to your iTunes collection there as well so then you can see it appear on your other devices. It will say sync across on your home movies using your iPad or iPhone. 
So you've got a lot of options there that you don't get with your standard slideshow. You have to create a slideshow project in order to do this.
One great customization feature that you've got is that not only do have this this text here, which is part of the theme I chose, but I can put text somewhere else. So let me got and select this photo. I hit the plus button and I can add a photo which is what you would expect the plus button to do. But I can also add text and it will add text to the currently selected photo. Now I can create a little bit of additional information here for this particular photo in the slide. So you have a little more ability to customize.
Of course if you really want to create a great slideshow with your photos it is probably still best to go to iMovie where you can do all sorts of things and have ultimate control. But for creating a very fast slideshow and exporting it as a video you can use the Photos app and the slideshow Projects.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Creating Slideshows In Photos”

Susan

10 years ago

I made a project slideshow with 30 photos and put text boxes on about 15 of the photos. I couldn't figure out how to make a default font and size for those 15 text boxes. I had to manually edit each one to be the font & size I wanted. Ideas?

Gary Rosenzweig

A good way to do it might be to use copy and paste -- then change the text. Or, you could also use the Font panel that comes up and assign a "favorite" to make things easier.
Otherwise, it sounds like you want more control so I would move to a different app like iMovie for this.

Jörg

Hi Gary,
Is there a way to burn these slideshows to dvd? I have added iDVD'09 and a SuperDrive to my new mac for this purpose, but would not mind a more direct route. Thanks, Jörg

Use iDVD. That's how you would do it. Or some other DVD software. None of the modern Apple software supports DVDs and none of the new Macs even have a drive. Since DVDs are standard definition (not HD) and online HD video has taken over distribution, Apple doesn't offer anything new.

Juan Salazar

Hi Gary,
Is there a way to export the slideshow in a 4K file?
Thanks

I don't think so If you need something at that level, I would use Final Cut Pro or Premiere for that.

Barbara Hooper

Is there any way in Photos to include automatically on the pictures in a slide show the titles (which were called captions in iPhoto) that I put on the pictures? In iPhoto I could caption the photos, then when I made a slideshow I could have the captions show on the slides. Made it much easier to present a slide show to an audience.

Not that I can see, no.

Comments Closed.

Creating Slideshows In Photos

Comments: 8 Responses to “Creating Slideshows In Photos”

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