Dive Into Your Imagination

Creating a slide show using your still images in Final Cut Pro can be fun and give you a very professional look. So lets get started! First, you need to properly resize your images and make sure your color space is correct. Full resolution High Definition video has a width of 1080 pixels. So assuming the best device that someone would have to watch your slide show would be an HDTV, 1080 pixels on the long side should be plenty. Next, you should make sure your images are in RGB color space rather than CMYK. The reason for this is that CMYK images tend to have over saturation problems as well as other issues in Final Cut Pro. To change this in Photoshop, simply pull down from the menu bar: Images>Mode>RGB. Lastly, it's good to know what formats FCP will accept. I prefer .JPG because they are small in size and work well, but here are formats that FCP will accept:

Pict: This is the standard uncompressed 24bit (millions of colors) still image format for mac.

TIFF: Another uncompressed 32bit (millions of colors + alpha channel for transparency) format which is cross platform and popular for print work. When used for print it's often in the CMYK color space - you should check it in photoshop and change it to RGB for video work.

Photoshop (.PSD): This is the native format of photoshop and can contain multiple layers which are preserved when importing into FCP.

JPEG: This is the most common compressed image format, it's what you will usually have when you download an image from the web.

GIF: This format is still popular on the web but has reduced color information and is generally not good for video work.

Photoshop (.PSD): This is the native format of photoshop and can contain multiple layers which are preserved when importing into FCP.

Now that your images are properly sized and formated, you're ready to import them into FCP. Open a new project, name it, and save it. Now click File>Import>File ...or Import >Folder if all your images are saved in the same place. FYI... if you're just importing one file at a time, you can use the "hot key" (Apple/Command) and the letter "I".

Place your first image in the timeline and make it as long as you would like. Now to give your images a nice look, we're going to give them movement using "Key Framing." To do this, place the timeline cursor on the first frame of your image. Click "Control" and the letter "K". If you have your wireframe on in your canvas (which is the third button to the right above your canvas window), you will see that it has turned green after clicking "Control" and the letter "K". This means you have placed a 'key frame." Now go to the end of your image and do the same as you did at the beginning, placing the "key frame." Now that you have two key frames placed, one at the beginning and one at the end of your image, you can create the movement. Personally, I like to add movement left and right or up and down as well as making the image larger. To do this, place the timeline cursor on the end of the image where you made the second key frame and drag the image in your canvas window. So, an example of this would be to drag the image up and to the left, then grab one corner of the image and pull it out to make the image a little bit bigger. Now when you start from the beginning and play your image in the timeline, you will see that the image gets bigger and moves up and to the left. Play around with this for a while until you get just the amount of movement you want for your images. Do this moving the images in different ways for each image until you're done. Now add some long cross dissolves or other transition from your "effects" and you have a slide show! Also note that the music you choose is very important. Music can make or break any presentation.

So to recap... you formated your images with proper color space and size. Then you imported them and laid them down in your timeline. Next you added "key frames" to the front and back of every image and then while on the second key frame you moved and stretched your image as desired. Lastly, you added great music and appropriate dissolves to finish off the piece! Now you know how to make professional looking slide shows in Final Cut Pro.

*Editor's Note: If you see any shaking or anything unusual in your images during playback of your slide show while in the timeline, first try exporting your piece. This often solves the problem. Export as a H.264.

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