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› › lightroom magazine › ›<br />
add music<br />
Music is key to creating an emotional connection with your<br />
audience. We now have the ability to add up to 10 tracks,<br />
though one or two will probably suffice for most projects. The<br />
first step is to make sure you have the music in one of the supported<br />
file formats (.mp3, .m4a, or .m4b), and the rights to<br />
include said music based on where you’re going to display the<br />
slideshow. There are a number of affordable outlets for licensing<br />
music files such as Triple Scoop Music and Song Freedom<br />
(to name a couple), but do your research before sharing your<br />
slideshow with the public.<br />
Click the switch on the new Music panel to enable audio to<br />
be included. Once enabled, click the plus sign (+) in the panel<br />
to navigate to the music files and select them. The Music<br />
panel will display the duration of each track as well as the total<br />
for all tracks. You can re-order the tracks within the panel by<br />
dragging and dropping them into the desired order. Select a<br />
track and click the minus sign (–) to remove it from the project.<br />
control playback<br />
The Playback panel got the most attention in this latest version.<br />
Some of the sliders were given more intuitive names,<br />
which is great. The most notable new features are the ability<br />
to Sync Slides to Music and the Pan and Zoom function. You<br />
can check Sync Slides to Music if you want the slide transitions<br />
to be based on the beats in the music instead of a set<br />
time interval. Note: When checked, any included video files<br />
will only display the poster frame in order to keep in time with<br />
the transitions, so not a good option if you want video clips<br />
to play.<br />
The Fit to Music function (see above right) has been<br />
improved, and does a better job of actually fitting the slideshow<br />
to the music duration. Set the Crossfades time first, then click<br />
the Fit to Music button to set the Slide Length. If your slideshow<br />
does include video, you’ll want to experiment with the Audio<br />
Balance slider to find the right mix of audio from the video clip<br />
and your music soundtrack.<br />
The new Pan and Zoom function, more commonly known<br />
as the Ken Burns effect, can add a little (or a lot of) motion to<br />
your stills as the slides transition through. This setting requires<br />
experimentation to decide if it’s right for your slideshow, but<br />
my experience says less is more as you cannot set it per slide.<br />
You can use the Draft or Standard setting on the new Quality<br />
drop-down menu at the bottom of the panel as you’re<br />
experimenting with settings to speed up playback.<br />
When the slideshow is ready, you can play it from inside<br />
Lightroom with music or you can output it as a video, <strong>PDF</strong>,<br />
or a series of JPG slides. Video is the only export option that<br />
includes the music. I find exporting as a video gives me more<br />
playback options even if I’m going to run the slideshow from<br />
the same computer. It’s nice to have choices. ■<br />
ALL IMAGES BY ROB SYLVAN<br />
› › kelbyone.com<br />
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