A/V slideshows are easier to shoot, edit and play than video. But Flickr’s slideshows don’t have sound.
Rob Galbraith’s website reviews one of the most popular A/V slide programs used by many newspapers - Soundslides ($39.95). Here are some examples.
Soundslides (FAQ and examples) is a simple utility for making slideshows with audio in Flash format.
In less than a year it seems to have taken the newspaper photojournalism world by storm (at least in the U.S.) and helped to spark what looks like, at least anecdotally, a sharp upsurge in multimedia journalism.
It’s been compatible with the Mac OS since its inception, and has recently emerged for Windows.You feed it JPEG photos and a sound file in either AIFF or MP3 format, and it outputs your slideshow as Flash files, along with the HTML files necessary to display the Flash files, in a single folder that can be uploaded to a server without additional work.
Your audio file is your timeline and the program has simple, intuitive controls for timing each picture individually. It automatically picks up IPTC captions; you can add or edit captions and credits in the authoring window; and the finished shows allow the viewer to hide or display the captions.
The Mercury News staff uses an M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 digital recorder ($499), which captures WAV or MP3 audio to CompactFlash cards, but lots of MP3 recorders cost under $100.
For audio editing, the open-source Audacity is free. Other commercial audio editing tools include Apple’s GarageBand, Adobe’s Audition, and DigiDesign’s Pro Tools.
Slideshare (above) is like YouTube for slide shows. It’s easy to upload and share your slides.
Microsoft’s Photostory 3 is one of the best A/V slideshow programs — and it’s a free download (for Windows XP only). It runs on the Windows Media player that most everyone has, but it displays still photos full-screen in high resolution without video artifacts. Can be embedded in a webpage or formatted for SmartPhones.
Microsoft’s Photostory can zoom and pan inside photographs and tag individual photos with audio. The soundtrack can be supplied by your narration or music. It even features synthesized music in a variety of themes that times itself to end when your slideshow finishes. It lacks multi-track editing (for music and narration), but it’s a great program for capturing and displaying photos.
PhotoWorks’ Photo Book can create customize books, using an easy wizard interface. Apple’s iPhoto can create beautiful hard cover and soft cover photobooks for $40 or so.
Walt Mossberg reviews some additional photobook options.
Blurb is a PC program for creating photobooks. You supply text and photos (it even works from a blog). First you download and install Blurb’s free BookSmart software to create your book. Next, explore different styles. Then upload your book to their website. A finished printed book starts at $19.
How about a wireless connection?
WiFi Photo Frames can automatically update, keyed to a hosted photo website. Wireless photostories can even be sent to phones and PDA. Platial lets you create a clickable map of your photostories. It’s free and easy to use.
Citizen Journalism from Yahoo & Reuters like You Witness News empower individuals.
Jimmy Wales and friends have taken the wraps off a new free Wikipedia service which allows anyone to create their own news site. Openserving.com will give Web hosting and content publishing technology to any and all comers, with all advertising revenues going to the authors. Journalism.co.uk has more. Here’s a tour of OpenServing.com.
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