Ten Tips On How To Make The Best Slideshow for a Birthday, Celebration, Funeral, Wedding, Ceremony and More

We all want to connect with our audiences through a slideshow whether it be at a birthday, a ceremony, party, wedding or funeral. One way to ensure an effective connection which can help generate a emotional response or a change in mood is to use great music along side your photos and videos. Here are a ten tips to help your slideshow be special:

1. Collect all photos first. Make sure that you have the best photos that you want to show in your slideshow. Scan you old hard copy photos using a scanner and then crop them using paint. Put all your digital photos and scanned photos in one folder and name the folder using the name of the event.
2. Think about the occasion and divide the slideshow or video into parts. For example, if it is a birthday slideshow we want to have a beginning, middle and end which could be divided into parts represents  photos of birth and childhood, teenage years, adult years/ having children kids and finally now.
3. Try to adapt the structure so each part is roughly the same length.  Each age is different whether 16, 18, 21, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 or even 100 years old, so try make sure that one part doesn't completely dominate the rest (unless that is your purpose)
4. Try to make it no more than 10-15 minutes. Yes, you have so many photos but you have keep only the very best ones, otherwise you will be there fore. Your viewers need to be kept enagaged and alert and something that can drag on too long can lead to them not enjoying the slideshow as much as you
5. Use songs that relate to the photos of the slideshow or use songs that relate to the period of when the photos were taken. Keeping your music relevant to the visual material will help you leave a more memorable and fitting presentation, complementing your visuals. For example when playing photos of a childhood, choose song about being young. If playing something in a religious environment such as a church, do not choose something that may offend people, so check the words and of the song before hand.
6. Keep the audience engaged with transitions of music through out the slideshow.     Try to fade in and fade out songs in your presentation. I recommend fading in to a song near a main part so that you do not loose momentum or climax too early in parts of the slideshow. You should aim to keep one song going for around 2 minute unless you feel that the mood is changing (or longer if it is such a great song!)
7. Keep the photos changing at a constant pace. I recommend 2-3 seconds as you don't want the photo to be changing to fast so that your viewers can't see them properly or too long that it is tedious to watch.
8. Add effect and transitions to photo changes. Adding a simple fade or spin to the next photo will make your slideshow look so much better and will keep your audience interested - it is much better to look gradually upon something than a sharp, abrupt transition.
9. Test Your Presentation Before. Watch a draft of your slideshow beforehand to see if it works as you had planned. Fix any mistakes, then make sure that people will be about to  hear in a noisy room. Test the presentation on the system you are using at the event, there nothing more embarasing than the presentation not working when it is showtime
10. Have fun making a memorable slideshow and cherish the memories!!

Did this help you?? Have any more tips?? Have a question about a tip? Leave them in the comments below