Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

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The Digital Photographer's Software Guide
It is essential to perform pre-prep on the slides before loading them into Soundslides
and to create and edit a soundtrack. A typical journalist’s workflow is to tone, crop, and
caption the images in Photoshop; convert them to generic RGB with a longest dimension
of 1,000 pixels; sharpen the images; save them as JPEG on 12 or Maximum (top
quality/lowest compression); and then finally import them to Soundslides. At the vendor’s
Website there is a lively forum where you can see many great shows made with the
software, plus get help and search the knowledge base.
Version: Soundslides 1.8 and Soundslides Plus 1.2 (2008)
OS: Windows 2000, XP, and Vista; Mac OS X 10.3
RAM: 256MB
Supported file formats: JPEG and MP3 audio
Price level: Approx. $40, Soundslides Plus $70
Address: Soundslides, LLC
www.soundslides.com
Slideroll
Vendor: Geoffrey P. Gaudreault
Purpose: Slide show creation/publishing online service, with Flickr import
Description
Slideroll is an online service that allows you to upload images or import them directly
from a Flickr account, and then create and display a slide show. It has several features
that you would expect from specialist desktop software, with pan and zoom, text overlay,
and a recently added capability for a soundtrack.
There are two editions: Basic, limited to 100 uploads/10 slide shows, and Pro, with
5,000 uploads (may be increased in the future) and unlimited slide shows.
Comments
Once you have created a slide show online, you can download it as a QuickTime movie,
post it to your Website, put it on MySpace or YouTube, or email it to friends. It is all good
fun, although the end result may have limited entertainment value unless you are exceptionally
gifted at packing a punch in a tiny format. In fact, this software was created by an
accomplished interactive designer whose work sets an excellent example. Putting a show
on to Slideroll would make a good class exercise for first-year media students.
Version: N/A (online application)
OS: Browser-based access
RAM: N/A
Supported file formats: JPEG
Price level: Basic edition free, Pro edition by subscription