FollowHalloween is around the corner. Kinds of funny activities celebrating for the festival appeared in my mind: trick-or-treating for children, attending costume parties, carving jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires etc. So I thought if I could make some Halloween cards and send them to my friends as greetings on the spookiest holiday using photos from last year’s Halloween party. However, after searching resources and app on the internet, I realized that I could do more than a photo card. I could combine cards and photos with music, transitions, and other effects together to make a slideshow. Yes I did a slideshow. So now I decide to write an article to share my experience in creating this Halloween slideshow. So you can also make a special gift for yourself and friends for this year’s Halloween festival.
Step1. Collect photos on iPad
There were many photos in my computer, so I tried to move these pictures to iPad for further use. First, I tried to use iTunes. I was not good at it, because I was a new user on it. When I synced pc photos to iPad with iTunes, it always told me that my original photos on iPad will be replaced. Of course, I did not want to lose my iPad photos. So I gave up using it to transfer photos.
Luckily, I got Wireless Transfer App with Google. Just as its name implied, it enabled you to transfer photos between devices with WiFi, no cables needed. I downloaded it to my iPad, followed its instructions, entered the URL in my computer browser address bar and uploaded pictures from PC. And it allowed me to bulk upload photos. Just within minutes, I finished moving pictures I needed for the slideshow to iPad from PC.
photo transfer app
Step3. Consolidate and frame photos
This is not a necessary step for creating slideshow. However I thought it would be interesting to composite many photos into one photo as the first slide, and create a card as the last slide. After searching on the internet, I got a app—imikimi HD Free.
It provided many kinds of frames for choosing. I used the “Search” function to search Frames about Halloween and chose one, added my photo into the frame, then saved and shared it to Library. Though it did not provide many frames which allowed you to add several pictures into one frame, I got some successfully. Then I added my own photos into it and made a composite picture. I know there are many other professional app which can combine pictures together, such as iPhoto Journal, But I did not want to pay for it.
Frame Photos
Step4. Find YouTube legal music for your slideshow
A good soundtrack can make or break a movie and the right song can help convey emotion or add humor. So I decided to find a suitable song for my Halloween slideshow. Because I wanted to upload my slideshow video to YouTube, so I had to get some music muted on YouTube. If you used an unauthorized song in the video, YouTube would detect it, then it would add Ads or block your slideshow video in some country. After digging online, I realized that I had to use some Creative Commons Licenses music. I found Jamendo website which provides around 350,000 pieces of free music, I downloaded “Blacks and Whites” by Opusvertigo to my pc, and then sync the music to my iPad with iTunes.
Also you can find YouTube allowed music from sites ,like Incompetech.com and Danodongs.com which individual artists created to share their work, though each appreciate donations. ccMixter app for iPad also provides many free music. You can download it from iTunes App, but you have to download it.
Creative Common song
Step5. Create Photo Slideshow on iPad
After all preparations were finished, I chose the magic slideshow app—Photo Slideshow Director HD. It was a really useful app for iPad users to make eye-catching slideshow with many effects. Once I imported all photos to the app, they were applied with random transitions. I was satisfied with the default transitions. But it still allowed me to change the transitions.
Tap the music icon , I selected the free song I downloaded in step4 and added it to the slideshow. To ensure the slides kept pace with music, I used the “Music and Slideshow Synchronization” function. Then a slideshow was almost finished, however, I chose to add more effects. the app allowed me to customize pan&zoom effects to make the photos more dynamic by using my fingers to set beginning and ending position of the photos. What surprised me most was its photo editing functions. Comparing with professional photo editor, it was not very powerful, but it was enough and useful when I wanted to fix my photos.
I had created a very beautiful slideshow by then even though I did not use other features of the slideshow app. Then I decided to export the slideshow. I had many choices to save the slides. But I chose to upload it YouTube for sharing with friends and family. Also I saved slideshow to my photo library.
Make slideshow on iPad
Thanks to all these applications, my friends like my photos work.
