Design Center Tutorial
Presentation possibilities in the Slideshow module, part 2: Customizing the slideshow's appearance
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Giving your show a unique look
- Making your images pop, adding backgrounds, and more
- Changing the background of the image display
- Working the design of the image display
- Timing and music
- Working with text
- What overlay options do you need?
- Making your own templates
Giving your show a unique look
At this point, it is worth refining how your photos display in the slideshow—give your show a graphic look. Turn the right and left panels back on, as shown in Figure 1, so you can access the tools needed for this graphic look.
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Figure 1: Click and drag images to move them.
In this module, it helps to start with the Template Browser to get an idea of possible choices you have. With practice, you will probably not need to do this. You may even set up your own, custom templates based on your slideshow needs, but that comes later.
Lightroom allows you to control how large the photo is within the display area, the background behind it, drop shadows and borders for the images, and what text is included. You can really create a very elegant looking slideshow with these tools.
The Template Browser includes five default choices (six now, if you have added the Basic template), as shown in Figure 2. As you move your cursor over each template choice, the Navigator changes, but nothing is changed on your center image until you actually click the choice. Each one offers you ideas, as well as a complete change to the look of your show:
Figure 2: The Template Browser has five default choices.
- Crop To Fill. This option enable you to fills the screen with your photo, as shown in Figure 3, cropping the image if necessary so it fits without any gaps. This is a way that you can show nothing but the photo. You can click and drag the photo to make it look its best for the crop. For horizontal photos, this may be fine and may even tighten up your composition. However, this really destroys verticals. You shot a vertical for a specific reason, so it seems to me a mistake to now turn it into a horizontal by cropping it to fit the horizontal screen. Crop To Fill can be useful if all of your photos are standard-sized horizontals, but if you include verticals, I suggest another choice.
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Figure 3: The Crop To Fill option enables you to fill the screen with your photo. - Caption and Rating. This template reduces the size of the photo to allow a gray background and image effects (this template has a drop shadow and a thin white border), plus it includes the photo’s Lightroom rating and any caption information associated with the image, as shown in Figure 4. When you first look at this (or any other template), you may see a grid of white lines. They are guides only and can be turned off in Layout by deselecting Show Guides.
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Figure 4: Caption and image rating information is included. - Default. Here you get a slightly bigger image than Caption and Rating, plus the file name is displayed below the photo and your Identity Plate (if you created one under Edit > Identity Plate Setup) at the top left. You can change either or both as desired. Default uses the same gray background, white border, and drop shadow as Caption and Rating, as shown in Figure 5.
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Figure 5: The Default template has a gray background, white border, and drop shadow. - Exif Metadata. This template changes a lot of things. First, the image is now displayed as the same size as Default, but with a black background and white border, as shown in Figure 6. Second, the image includes a lot of information. At the top left is an identity plate if you are using one, and at top right, the date the photo was shot.
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Centered below the photo is information about the photographer as it was used in the metadata, including Creator (name), Creator City, and Creator State. At the right is camera Exif data including f-stop, ISO speed rating, and focal length used. (You can change this.)
Figure 6: The image has a black background and white border. - Widescreen. The name of this option is a little misleading. It seems to imply that your photo will be full width, which would mean verticals are cropped. Actually, what you get is “full frame”—you see the whole image and it fills the screen to its full height or width without cropping either, and then a black background fills the gaps. No borders or drop shadow are used, as shown I Figure 7.
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Figure 7: The image has a black background and white border.
