iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual, Fourth Edition

Chapter 11. iPhoto Goes to the Movies

As Chapter 7 makes clear, once you select your images and choose the music to go with them, iPhoto orchestrates the production and presents it live on your Mac’s screen as a slideshow.

Which is great, as long as everyone in your social circle lives within six feet of your screen.

The day will come when you want friends and family who live a little farther away to be able to see your slideshows. Sure, you could pack up your Mac and fly across the country, but wouldn’t it be easier to simply send the slideshow as a file attachment that people can play on their own computers?

That’s the beauty of QuickTime, a portable multimedia container built into every Mac. Even if the recipient uses a Windows PC (every family has its black sheep), your photos will meet their public; QuickTime movies play just as well on HPs and Dells as they do on iMacs and PowerBooks.

The trick is to convert your well-composed iPhoto slideshow into a standalone QuickTime movie. You’ll then have a file on your hard drive that you can email to other people, post on your Web page for downloading, burn onto a CD, and so on. When played on the computer or TV screen, your grateful audience will see your photos, large and luscious, accompanied by the music and effects you chose for them.

Two Kinds of Slideshows

Fortunately, iPhoto makes creating the movie as simple as creating the original show itself. You just have to know which buttons to click.

As Chapter 7 makes clear, iPhoto 5 offers ...