The Photopia Blog
Tips, tutorials & inspiration for making slideshows
APRIL 5, By Photopia
Creating a simple show in the Light User Interface
The Light User Interface provides the least complex layout for you to easily build your show. To work in the Light UI, click on the UI Layout button at the top of the screen and choose Light.
Step 1 – Add Images
The first step is to add your images and videos. Click on the Add Photo/Video button in the upper left corner.
The Browser window will open allowing you to search for your images, either on your computer or using select third-party services.
Helpful Tip!
To add multiple images at once hold down your Shift key for consecutive images and your Ctl/Cmd key for non-consecutive images.
Step 2 – Add Music
Adding Music before working with your slides is the best way to set your timing of your slides and transitions.
Click on the Add Audio button at the top of the screen. You can use songs from the Photopia Music Library or add your own music.
To preview a song in the Music Library select it in the list then hit the play button at the top. You can choose to hear a 30 second preview or the whole track. Once you’ve selected a song, hit Ok.
Step 3 – Using Quick Sync
You’ll ultimately want your slide and transition times to closely match the total length of the song, or songs, you’ve added to the Soundtrack. You can manually adjust your slide and transition times by entering new numbers in the Slide and Transition fields. A faster, but less creative way to sync your slides and music is to let Photopia automatically adjust all the slide and transition times to fit the music, mathematically.
Helpful Tip!
You can see your slide time as compared to your soundtrack time in the upper right corner of your screen.
Under the Tools option in the top menu, there are two options to sync your entire show to your soundtrack. Quick Sync – Entire Show will automatically reset all the slide and transition times to match your soundtrack time. Sync show to audio gives you more options.
Choosing Sync show to audio allows you to choose to sync only specific slides, sync only slides or only transitions, and limit your transition times so that you don’t have long transitions that may have made sense mathematically, but don’t make sense creatively. Once you’ve determined your settings, hit Sync.
Step 4 – Applying Slide Styles and Transitions
Applying Slide Styles and transitions to your slides is how you will create motion in your show. To see what a Slide Style will look like, select a slide then open the Slide Style tab in the Options Panel on the right, select a Slide Style, and click Preview. If you like the Style, click Apply at the bottom.
Helpful Tip!
If you’d like to add a caption to your slide, the easiest choice is to select the Captions and Titles category in the Slide Style list and choose a slide style that has a built-in caption.
After you have applied the Slide Style that has a built-in caption layer, open the Content Tab, select the Caption layer, enter your text, and change the font, size, and color, if you’d like.
To choose a new transition, click on the A/B transition in between the slides to open the transition window. You can select a transition and preview it before hitting Apply.
Publishing your Show
After previewing your show using the Preview Tab and making any changes to your slides and transitions, you’re ready to publish your show. Click on the Publish button in the upper right corner.
There are several options to publish your show, but the most universal option is a video file. Select Video File from the list on the left and you’ll have several video file type options appear in the column on the right. Use the collapsible arrows to select your video file type, and then resolution.
Helpful Tip!
If you plan to use the same video file type and resolution often, click on the Favorite button at the bottom to add it to your favorites list.
Click Create, then choose a location and file name for your video file. Once you have your show as a rendered video file you can upload it to your favorite Social Media site, share it with family and friends by saving it to a USB drive, or play it back full screen on your chosen video player on your computer.
