iMac photo slide programs: Lightroom is not the greatest at creative slide creation. What have you found that allows music, video and photos in a creative manner. Have iMovie but have...

Mark7S

Lightroom is not the greatest at creative slide creation. What have you found that allows music, video and photos in a creative manner. Have iMovie but have not tried that as yet. appreciate UHH input

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

Mac user here. I use FotoMagico from Boinx. Great program. Works with any file type. Easy to mix video and stills. Multiple audio tracks. Drag and drop and speaks to Lightroom and Apple Music. Great customer support.
(I don't work for them.)
...Cam

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Premiere Elements. If you start in Lightroom Classic with RAW and set it to save your adjustment in XMP sidecar files, Premiere Elements will see and read the XMPs when you add the media to a project. In other words, you can build a complete slideshow out of Lightroom without exporting to JPEGs. Premiere Elements can also output the show in 4K if you have the TV for that. A bonus is music control. It can provide canned computer music or you can use anything you have or find.

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Another vote for FotoMagico.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Mark7S wrote:

Lightroom is not the greatest at creative slide creation. What have you found that allows music, video and photos in a creative manner. Have iMovie but have not tried that as yet. appreciate UHH input

FotoMagico, available at the Apple store or their website. Does whatever you need.

Mark7S

Great thanks for the Advice - will take good look at FotoMagic

Charlie7

Mark7S wrote:

Lightroom is not the greatest at creative slide creation. What have you found that allows music, video and photos in a creative manner. Have iMovie but have not tried that as yet. appreciate UHH input

I use iMovie. Easy to use, many options, good tutorials and very good end product. If you have it, you should give it a try.

ChrisKet Loc: Orange, CA

I’ve used iMovie for years and have had lots of fun with it; i especially enjoy the ability to make trailers. There’s a learning curve, of course, and it’s built to integrate well with Photos; not so much Lightroom, so there’s an extra step of exporting the photos you want to use. After spending so much $ on a nice iMac, I’m resistant to spend even more on software, unless I find that my needs are not met with with the provided tools.

spraguead Loc: Boston, MA

iMovie works great and comes with your OS.
Beyond that there is Adobe Premier, but that is overkill and expensive for what you want.

manofhg Loc: Knoxville, TN

I have used Premiere Elements, but while it will do a lot of things, it isn't easy to use or wasn't for the ancient version I have. I moved to iMovie and it is fine for slides and vid and music. It certainly doesn't have the power of Premiere, but it had all I needed.

Now that I have moved to Photoshop via CC (I know, I've gone to the dark side), it includes Rush which I have no knowledge of yet other than it is for vids and I assume pictures as well. I expect I'll be trying it out soon or at least looking for some tutorials on it to see if it is something I want to try.

Floyd Loc: Misplaced Texan in Florence, Alabama

Check out "Keynote" which is already on your iMac or is a free download from the App store. Works great and I've made several slideshows, with music. Allows setting various different times for each slide to be portrayed-tome meets all needs for an excellent slideshow.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"it includes Rush which I have no knowledge of yet"

Rush is not a general purpose editor. It is anchored in smartphone tech. It is a response to the needs and demands of the video channel creators. You put the Rush app on your phone, shoot video with your phone, do the first edits on your phone's tiny screen and then directly upload your "finished" video to YouTube. In the background it is working on "cloud synching". That's so you can later open the project on your "big screen" computer, polish the editing and replace your YouTube first rough cut.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Mark7S wrote:

Lightroom is not the greatest at creative slide creation. What have you found that allows music, video and photos in a creative manner. Have iMovie but have not tried that as yet. appreciate UHH input

TRY iMovie. It is a great tool for creating slide shows. I've been using it since version 1.0, nearly 20 years ago.

You can: set timing down to the video frame, use the Ken Burns pan and zoom effects, crop, add special transitions such as dissolves and wipes, add titles, add and edit a sound track (perhaps bouncing it to GarageBand for near studio-level control over quality of the mix)...

When done, you can upload it to YouTube, Vimeo, etc. directly from iMovie. You can save it to a flash drive to play on a smart TV. Or you can plug in a projector and play it directly. It is a STRONG choice.

At any rate, I highly recommend using a video editor of some sort for slide show creation. It allows the use of text, graphics, stills, video, narration, music, sound effects... And it creates video for UNIVERSAL playback.

manofhg Loc: Knoxville, TN

bsprague wrote:

"it includes Rush which I have no knowledge o... (show quote)

Thanks for the info. If I ever get a cell phone,.......yeah, I'm a dinosaur.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

bsprague wrote:

Premiere Elements. If you start in Lightroom Classic with RAW and set it to save your adjustment in XMP sidecar files, Premiere Elements will see and read the XMPs when you add the media to a project. In other words, you can build a complete slideshow out of Lightroom without exporting to JPEGs. Premiere Elements can also output the show in 4K if you have the TV for that. A bonus is music control. It can provide canned computer music or you can use anything you have or find.

I didn't know you could do that with Premiere Elements. Good to know.