Mrs. Hibiscus, Orange County
Age and Occupation in 06: 25, Eyebal Doc
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Commerical Underwriter
Engagement Date: September 26, 2004
Wedding Date: July 7, 2007
Venue: Laguna Beach on the beach, reception on a yacht in Newport Beach
About Me: I'm an eyeball doc. Normal is boring. I'm a hat person and a cat person. I'm in love (so very very in love). I'm a dreamer. I want to change the world. Superheroes are my friends. Kindness is contagious. Music is in my heart. Carpe diem.
DIY Slideshow Hell
March 6th, 2007 @ 11:52 am by Mrs. Hibiscus
I’ve been working diligently over the past couple of days on scanning pictures for our wedding slideshow. I hate scanning pictures. I hate it! This morning, I spent an hour scanning about 30 pictures (yes I’m slow) and then I couldn’t find them on the computer. About 30 minutes into my frantic teary eyed search I contemplated scanning them again. It was a fleeting thought. This was a matter of principle. It was me versus the computer. I would not relinquish my photos to a machine. It took me another hour to find them but I finally salvaged my pictures. I was both relieved and irritated.
Then, the realization dawned on me that I could scan more than one photo at a time. (8 years of college ladies and gentlemen¢¢â€š¬¦.yes, she can be taught.) This has slightly lessened the pain. It will all be worth it I tell myself. My slideshow is going to be the slideshow to end all slideshows! (Not really….but that’s what I have to tell myself to get through this agony.)
Fruit of my labor:
Well, if you’re looking to do your slideshow yourself (you crazy person….jk), here are some programs that might help you. (If you’re a Mac user, you have awesome programs on your Mac and I bet you already know that.)
Windows Movie Maker: I think everyone has this program on their computer. It’s relatively simple to use. A lot of people use it for their slideshows.
Microsoft Photostory 3: You can download it for free here. This program is even simpler to use than Movie Maker. It pretty much does your slideshow for you but you have less control over different functions.
Powerpoint: I think everyone has had some experience with Powerpoint. I know I was forced to learn in high school and relearn in college.
For those of you willing to spend some cash. These two programs have gotten rave reviews from users.
Sony Vegas Movie Studio:
~$89.95
Proshow Gold
~$69.95
I hope your DIY slideshow experiences are better than mine. 
Good luck!
Do you have any other recommendations for slideshow programs out there?
16 Responses to “DIY Slideshow Hell”
Macs come with iMovie, which I think it pretty simple. We want to include video interview clips, so this is the program we’ll tackle in a couple weeks.
Otherwise, I might have to visit the free microsoft site! Thanks. And good luck!
PS I love your Newport reception on a yacht. Little jealous, here. 
We just went to a wedding this past weekend and the highlight of the wedding was the slideshow. We really want to incorporate a slideshow into our wedding but our videographer is asking $2500! Is that a crazy price? How are you setting up your projection screen, slide show, etc? Are you doing it yourself or renting one?
Our venue has a really awkward shape (L shape) so we’re not sure how to work around that either. Any suggestions ?
if you have a mac, they have two slideshow programs… iphoto and idvd. they are FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!! and sooooo user friendly.
No, but there are several companies (recently reviewed in the wall street journal) that will scan all of your pictures and turn them into a DVD slideshow for you for between $40-$80
I feel your pain Miss Hibiscus. I will be making my own slideshow also. Soon I’ll have to start scanning pictures for it as well. I’m using a program called U-LEAD 9.0 Studio.
Miss Apple!! Don’t pay $2500!! You can do a great job yourself with the programs above and I rented the projector though my DJ. You can also ask your Videographer. As for the L shape…hmm…..I would have people move. or try to center it to get both sides to see, no one will have a good view. At least that’s what I’m picturing since I don’t now your location.
can music be incorporated in any of those programs?
Using Flickr you could create a Photoshow DVD. However the only music allowed is what they’ve got in their library (copyright issues.) You could just throw together your slideshow and then have the DJ/Band play music while your slideshow goes.. or use your facility’s audio setup…
It’s great to see this post! I’m designing our slideshow for our reception. I’m going to use Microsoft Movie Maker since it’s simple and I have experience using it. There are also scanning services that will scan items/photos for around $1 a piece. You’d then get them back on a CD. This will still give you the creative control for the slideshow.
Lily - Photostory and Mircrosoft Movie Maker let you add music and/or sound. I’m not sure about the rest.
thanks for posting this information! i was just wondering what quality or dpi (?) do you have to scan the photos in to ensure that the images are still crisp and clear when projected on to a screen? we are having our photos scanned by a photography studio and they mentioned something about 1600 dpi?
i used photostory for our wedding because i forgot to do it until the last minute! it’s so easy to use, and yes it lets you add music.
Photostory and Movie Maker let you add whatever songs you have on your computer.
Nancy-1600dpi is pretty darn good quality. I think more important is the quality of the original picture.
[…] wedding was in it somewhere.) I’ve used several other programs for slideshows, as blogged about previously. This by far gave the best results. All my hard work really paid […]
I am helping my friend with her wedding and she wants to do a slideshow but she wants it to be played during the ceremony. When should this be played during the ceremony?
We were going to do our own slideshow as well but ran out of time and found http://www.DVDPhotographs.com online and were glad we did. For about $100 we had a professional create a slideshow for us and it came out much better than what I would have been able to do myself.
