Slideshows

Adobe Encore DVD 2.0 makes it easy to assemble dynamic slide presentations for your DVDs, complete with background audio and visual effects. In this section of the guide, we will use Adobe Bridge and the Slideshow panel in Adobe Encore DVD to assemble and finish a slide presentation.

Try it: Assembling a slideshow

1. If your DVD project from Part 2 is no longer open, click New Project in the Welcome to Adobe Encore DVD dialog box. Select the NTSC standard in the New Project Settings dialog box, and then click OK. Name your project, and then click Save.

2. Choose Window > Workspace > Slideshow Design. This will rearrange your workspace panels to better support the task of editing slideshows.

3. Choose File > Browse to launch Adobe Bridge.

4. In Bridge, choose Edit > Find. Set the dialog box to look in the RG Assets folder, and then set criteria to Keywords contains storyboard. Click Find. (If you have not completed Part 2 of this guide, use Bridge to find any selection of image files.)

5. In Adobe Bridge, select all of the found images in the main display window.

6. In Adobe Bridge, choose File > Open in Adobe Encore DVD as > Slideshow.

7. Observe that thumbnails of all the images have been added to a new slideshow in Adobe Encore DVD. The slideshow is given the same name as the first slide by default. If you like, you can rename the slideshow
by right-clicking the slideshow in the Project panel, and then choosing Rename.

8. Once you have your images in the Slideshow panel, it's easy to rearrange them. Simply click and drag. Try moving some of the images around in the Slideshow panel now. You can add subtitles to any or all slides in your slideshow, basing them on either slide name or a description you add yourself. This can be especially useful for users such as graphic designers using DVD as the delivery medium for their portfolios or catalogs. It can also be a useful feature when organizing your work. Let's turn on subtitles based on slide name now to help assure we have these storyboard slides in the right order.

Try it: Adding subtitles, audio, and effects to your slideshow

1. With Slideshow as the active panel, press Ctrl+A to select all the slides in your slideshow. (The active panel is indicated by a bright orange outline. If the Slideshow panel is not currently active, you can make it active by clicking it.)

2. In the Basic tab of the Properties panel, select Create Subtitle and
Contains Name. (If you maximized the Slideshow panel earlier, choose Restore Frame Size from the Slideshow panel's pop-out menu, or press the ~ key.)

3. Click the tab for the Character panel to bring it to the front. (In the default Slideshow Design workspace, the Character panel is in the same group as the Properties panel.)

4. Select a font, size, and other type settings for your subtitles.

5. Click one of the slides so that they are no longer all selected.

6. Using the information in the subtitles, put the storyboard images in order from 1 through 19.

7. Next, add a background audio file. Choose File > Import as > Asset. Select RG Assets/Adobe Encore/partylife.wav, and then click Open. The file now appears in the Project panel of Adobe Encore DVD.

8. Drag partylife.wav from the Project panel to the Audio list in the Slideshow
panel.

9. Click the Play button in the Monitor window.

10. Note that the audio and your slideshow don't end at the same time. To synchronize slide and audio duration, select Fit Slideshow to Audio Duration. Click Play in the Monitor panel again to see that the slideshows are now displayed for an equal amount of time, with the last slide display and the audio ending at the same time.

11. Next open the Default Transition pull-down menu and choose any transition.

12. Select Random Pan and Zoom to easily add dynamic action to your slides.

13. Click the Play button in the Monitor to view your slideshow with transitions and pan and zoom effects.

In the steps above, you've seen how quickly you can assemble and rearrange a slideshow in Encore, synchronize
it with background audio, and add pan and zoom effects and transitions.

In addition to easy application of effects to all the slides in your slideshow, Encore also gives you tremendous flexibility in customizing effects, transitions, and subtitles. When you select one or more slides in the Slideshow
panel, the Properties panel displays slide properties in three tabbed panes. The Basic, Transition, and Effects panes offer controls that allow you to override global slideshow settings and apply individual durations,
transitions, effects, and more to the selected slide or slides. For example, if you have added a spoken narration audio file to your slideshow, you can adjust the duration of each individual slide to perfectly match each stage in the speaker's presentation. You can opt to pan in a particular direction, and/or choose to zoom in or zoom out. Adobe Encore DVD provides the ideal blend of ease of use and ultimate flexibility for the creation of your DVD slideshows.

When you have finished exploring the Slideshow creation capabilities of Adobe Encore DVD 2.0, choose File > Close Project. Click No when asked if you want to save changes.