Copyright 2008 Boinx Software

Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries, used with permission. System Requirements: PowerPC or Intel Mac with Mac OS X 10.4 or higher

04/2008 2

CONTENTS
WHAT IS FOTOMAGICO? ........................................................... 5 INTRODUCING THE USER INTERFACE ......................................... 6 QUICKSTART GUIDE ................................................................... 6 STAGE AREA ............................................................................... 8
Placing your Image using the Mouse............................................. 9 Placing your Image using Jog Wheels ........................................... 9 Contextual Menu ......................................................................... 9

STORYBOARD........................................................................... 10
Contextual Menu ....................................................................... 10

IMAGES PANEL ......................................................................... 11 AUDIO PANEL........................................................................... 12

Audio Browser........................................................................... 12 Live Searching ........................................................................... 12 Get Audio Information ............................................................... 13 Audio Player.............................................................................. 13

OPTIONS ................................................................................. 13
Slide Options ............................................................................ 13 Transitions................................................................................. 14 Images Options......................................................................... 15 Fine Tuning Pan & Zoom Animation............................................ 16 Audio Options........................................................................... 18 Title Options ............................................................................. 19 Notes........................................................................................ 19

FOTOMAGICO PREFERENCES ................................................... 20

Application Preferences.............................................................. 20 Slideshow Settings ..................................................................... 22

PRESENTING YOUR SLIDESHOW............................................... 23

Play in window .......................................................................... 23 Present in full screen .................................................................. 23 Interactively controlling playback ................................................ 24 Apple Remote............................................................................ 24

SHARING SLIDESHOWS ............................................................ 25

Image Quality and Distribution Reach......................................... 25 Sharing Your Slideshow.............................................................. 26 Creating a Standalone Player..................................................... 27 Creating a DVD......................................................................... 28 Creating a Web Page................................................................. 30 3

Creating a Custom QuickTime Movie ......................................... 32

WHAT IS FOTOMAGICO?
FotoMagico is an application for creating and presenting live slideshow presentations. The primary goal is to present your pictures at the maximum supported quality that your presentation device delivers. Typical presentation devices are your computer's screen, a TV set or projector. Aside from high image quality, the focus lies on easy and powerful authoring of your presentation. FotoMagico provides a simple, yet elegant and intuitive user interface. Using FotoMagico, you can: Create stunning slideshow presentations. Use photos from an iPhoto or Aperture library or any folder on a local drive. Zoom, move, and rotate the images to highlight the most important areas of your photos. Use Pan & Zoom to move across your photos. This type of motion is commonly referred to as Ken Burns effect. Add Titles to your images to create a compelling narrative. Use music from your iTunes library to create an appropriate atmosphere for your slideshow. Control timing and other details of your slideshow with maximum precision. Control your slideshows interactively during playback. Share your slideshows with other in a variety of formats. If you want to share your finished slideshows with other people who do not have FotoMagcio installed on their computer, you have a host of options that let you do just that, e.g. creating a standalone player, creating a DVD, or publishing your slideshow to a .Mac webpage. See SHARING SLIDESHOWS on page 25 for more information.

WHAT IS FOTOMAGICO?

INTRODUCING THE USER INTERFACE

1. Images-/ Audio-Options Panel - Choose slideshow media by selecting images from an iPhoto or Aperture library and songs from your iTunes library. Use the controls in the Options panel to change settings of selected items in the storyboard. 2. Stage Area - Use the stage area to position, scale and rotate your image on the screen. 3. Storyboard - Author your slideshow presentation by arranging your photos in a sequence and adding audio to it. 4. Info Panel - Display a dimmed palette containing image file information. 5. Slideshow Settings - Apply global settings, e.g. stage size, background color and a watermark image.

QUICKSTART GUIDE
This section will introduce you to creating your first slideshow. Let's assume you have set FotoMagico's preferences to work with iPhoto as your image repository and that you have defined an iPhoto album called My Slideshow that contains the images you intend to use in your slideshow.
TIP APERTURE This tutorial works just as well, if you opted for use of Aperture instead of iPhoto as your image repository. Simply replace iPhoto for Aperture in the text body.

1. Launch FotoMagico. If you didn't set the preferences to create an empty document upon launch, create one now by choosing the menu command New (Command-N) from the File menu. An assistant sheet will come up that lets you choose from several presentation scenarios, e.g. on the computer screen, on your home TV set or on a projector. For sake of this tutorial choose Monitor and leave the option Display of this Macintosh checked. Confirm by clicking the Choose button. 2. You will see the blank stage area at the top of the window and the empty storyboard at the bottom as well as the Images panel to the right of the document window. The popup menu at the top lists the iPhoto library and all iPhoto albums and slideshows. Select the album My Slideshow from this popup.

3. The contact sheet below this popup now displays all images of that album. Select them all (except the blank image at the top left) and drag them to the Storyboard at the bottom of the window. The Storyboard is labelled with the text Drag Images Here.

4. All slides in the Storyboard should still be selected (blue slide frames). If you accidentally deselected them, select them again using the menu command Select All by pressing the Command-key and letter A on the keyboard.

QUICKSTART GUIDE

5. Below the image repository, click the Audio button to reveal the Audio panel. Select a song from your iTunes library and drag it below the first slide in your Storyboard.

6. Play the slideshow full screen by choosing the Present command from the Slideshow menu. The present button above the Storyboard has the same function. If you have more than one monitor, you can choose which screen should be used for the presentation by selecting Present on screen... 7. While the slideshow is playing you can stop it at any time by hitting Escape or by pressing Command-Period keys. 8. Save your slideshow document. 9. Adjust various settings, add titles, etc., experiment and have fun!

STAGE AREA
The Stage Area displays the currently selected slide as it is going to be presented. There are two modes: With Pan & Zoom enabled (default) or without it. But first, let's Drag and drop an image from the Images panel into the Stage Area to insert it at the current play head position. If you enable Pan & Zoom in the options panel, by clicking the icon above the storyboard, through menu Options or by pressing the keys Command-K, you'll see start and nish state. Set up position, scale and rotation for start and finish state of your image and let FotoMagico calculate the motion. If you choose not to enable Pan & Zoom, you still get to scale or rotate the image according to your liking. Add a title to a slide using the menu command Add Title from the Slideshow menu or from the contextual menu (see below). Preview your settings by choosing Preview Motion from the Options menu or by choosing the same command from the contextual menu (see further below) or by pressing the space bar on your keyboard.

Placing your Image using the Mouse Click and drag an image to position it on stage. Drag one of the corner handles to resize it. Click just
outside the image, but close to its edge and drag to rotate the image. The cursors will change to reflect the current manipulation, e.g. scaling or rotating. Alternatively, you can press the Command key and drag the mouse to rotate an image. To zoom in on the image, press the Option key and drag the mouse upwards. When pressing the option key and dragging downwards, you'll zoom out of the image.

Placing your Image using Jog Wheels Click on an image or a title in the stage area to select it. The selected object will be highlighted with
frame and four corner handles.

Drag the jog wheels to change zoom or rotation of the selected object. Click into a text field next to the
jog wheels to enter numerical values.
TIP By using the text fields you get to enter values that the jog wheels won't allow for, e.g. rotation values smaller than 1 degree.

Contextual Menu
The contextual menus sport a different number and order of items for image and title objects. Find a description of all items below. Pan & Zoom - Enable/disable the Pan & Zoom effect. Swap Start & Finish - (only available if Pan & Zoom is enabled) - Exchange the start & finish state of the current image or title, thereby reversing the motion. Use on both image and title to reverse the whole slide. Randomize Motion - Sets a random pan & zoom effect for the selected slide. Preview Motion - Preview the Pan & Zoom motion of the current slide. Zoom to 100%/Zoom to Fill Stage Completely/Zoom to Show Whole Image - Use these commands to auto size the image. Copy Geometry - Copy zoom, rotation, and position parameters of an image or title object. Paste Geometry - Apply copied parameters to another image or title. You can choose to paste all parameters at once or each one individually. Show: Action Safe Area/Title Safe Area - Displays a stitched rectangle reflecting the area of an image that is safe for applying action (=motion) or placing and animating titles (text) when presenting your slideshow on a TV screen. This may be helpful when you want to burn your slideshow to DVD and present it on a regular size TV set (4:3). Add Title - Adds a title to the current slide. Please note that a slide can only hold one title, but a title can have multiple lines and multiple styles.
STAGE AREA 9

 Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete Title - Allows for copying and pasting of titles from one slide to another or
deleting it.
TIP Use the Copy Geometry and Paste Geometry commands to copy the settings for zoom, position, and rotation between slides or from start to end of the Pan & Zoom animation. This allows for precise, template-like placement of your images.

STORYBOARD
The Storyboard at the bottom of the application window is the main place for authoring your slide show. There are two tracks: The upper track displays image thumbnails as slides in the sequence of their display, the lower track holds the audio. Drag images from the Images Panel to add them to the Storyboard. By holding down the Command-key you can select multiple images at once. Add an audio item to a slide by dragging a song from the Audio panel to the area below a slide.
TIP Audio items are linked to the first slide above it. If you move this slide, the audio item is moved along with it.

Select slides or audio items by clicking on them. Select multiple objects by pressing the Shift-key when
clicking or drag a selection rectangle over the slides or audio items.

Drag selected image thumbnails to rearrange the order of slides in your slideshow. Delete selected slides by pressing the backspace key, selecting the Delete menu item from the Edit
menu, or by dragging the selected slides out of the storyboard.

You can extend an audio segment over multiple slides by dragging its left or right edge horizontally.
Move an audio item to a different slide by dragging it to its new location.

The play head indicates where playback will start and where new images will be inserted when you drag
them into the Stage Area. Dragging images from the Images panel directly into the Stage Area also adds them to the Storyboard. Double-clicking a slide or audio item will bring up the Options panel and lets you change parameters for the selected items.

Contextual Menu
The contextual menus display different sub menu items depending on where you click. The order as well as number of menu items may vary as well. Find a description of all items below. To bring up the contextual menu, click using your right mouse-button or press Command-key when clicking when using a one-button-mouse. When clicking the storyboard background you'll see this command: Insert Blank Slide - this will insert a blank slide at the current play head position. Blank slides are mainly used to display a preceding or trailing title for your slideshow. See Title Options on page 19.
10 Contextual Menu

 Clicking on the duration number below a slide thumbnail lets you choose image duration of the slide in
1s increments (if continue after xed time is the continue type) or change the continue type to mouse click or audio marker. Clicking on the transition icon lets you choose the transition type.
TIP Please note that this only affects the transition type of the slide directly to the left, not multiple selected slide thumbnails.

Clicking on a slide reveals these contextual menu commands:

Pan & Zoom - Enable/disable the Pan & Zoom effect. Swap Start & Finish - (only available if Pan & Zoom is enabled) - Exchange the start & finish state of
the current image or title, thereby reversing the motion. Use on both image and title to reverse their motion. Randomize Motion - Sets a random pan & zoom effect for the selected slide. Preview Motion - Preview the Pan & Zoom motion of the current slide. Match Duration To Audio - This menu command is only available, if you have multiple images and an audio item selected. Duration of images and transitions are adjusted so that their total duration matches playing length of the audio. Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete - Lets you copy and paste selected slides or audio items.
TIP Please note that paste will always insert an item at the current play head position.

Add/Delete Title - Adds a title to or removes it from the current slide. Please note that a slide can hold
only one title box, but a title can have multiple lines and multiple styles.

Get Info - Will display additional information on selected media items in a dimmed overlaying dialog
window.

Replace Image... - Brings up the file navigation dialog allowing you to select a new image at the current playhead position.
TIP Please note that neither slide duration nor transition type or duration are being changed. Their values remain the same, only the image is being replaced.

IMAGES PANEL
The Images Panel is tightly integrated with iPhoto and Aperture, allowing for convenient images browsing and selecting. Determine in the Images section of the application preferences, whether to use iPhoto or Aperture. In addition, you get to choose any other images folder on your disk as well. Select one or multiple images from the media browser popup and add them to your slideshow. To minimize loading time of image thumbnails, choose an album from the popup menu to display its image contents. This way you avoid having to wait for the entire library to be loaded into the media browser popup.
IMAGES PANEL 11

 If you have images that are not stored in iPhoto, select the Choose Folder... command from the popup
menu to browse images files in a folder on your hard disk.

The area below the contact sheet displays additional information about a selected image. Below the information is a slider similar to the one in iPhoto to control the size of the thumbnails in the
contact sheet.

Select one or multiple images and drag them to the Stage Area or the Storyboard to add them to your
slideshow. When dragging to the Stage Area they will be inserted at the playhead position.
TIP iPhoto albums are a great way to organize images you might want to use for a slideshow. Choose the album from the popup menu, select all images (except the blank image at the beginning) and drag them to the Storyboard. Depending on the amount and size of your photos, creating and reading their thumbnails can take some time. Creating thumbnails for images in a hard disk folder is slower than images from your iPhoto library.

TIP

AUDIO PANEL
The Audio panel is integrated with your iTunes Library so that you can quickly find your songs. Drag songs from the Audio Panel to the audio track of the Storyboard to add them to your slideshow.
TIP You will be able to use audio files purchased from the iTunes Music Store in your slideshow for live presentation purposes. However, since these audio files are protected by a digital rights management system (DRM), Apple prohibits exporting these songs to QuickTime movies. For this reason, those songs are being removed when exporting a slideshow to QuickTime movies or when burning DVDs or CDs.

Audio Browser
Click on the Audio icon to the right and above the storyboard. The popup menu at the top contains your iTunes library and all iTunes play lists. Select a play list to display its songs in the table below. Click in the headers of a table column to sort the list by that column. Control-click the table header to show/hide additional columns like Artist or Album. You may need to increase the width of the table to see additional columns. You can do this by dragging the divider between the Stage Area and the Audio panel. Resize table columns by clicking and dragging column header separators. Double-click on a song to start playback. When a song is playing, a single click on a different audio file is enough to play a different song. To stop audio playback, click on the pause icon in the LCD display area above the storyboard.

Live Searching
Use the search field above the LCD display area to search your iTunes Library for a particular audio file:

12

Audio Browser

 For search terms, enter a part of the song title, the name of an artist or album. The table contents will
list only those songs matching the search term.

Get Audio Information Select an audio file from the list above and press the i-icon at the right end to bring up the additional
information overlay window.

Audio Player
Below the list of songs, you'll see an area resembling an LCD display that allows you play, pause and navigate within a selected song. Click on the play button to start playing the song. Click again to pause playing. Click and drag the playhead to scrub through the song Click the time display to cycle through elapsed (default), remaining and total playing time.

OPTIONS
The Options panel lets you change settings of any items you selected in the Storyboard. The panel is context sensitive, i.e. only those settings applicable to the selected items are shown (e.g. title options are only visible if a slide with a title is selected).
TIP You can make changes to multiple slides at once by selecting several slides in the storyboard before adjusting settings in the Options panel.

Slide Options
Animation Enabling Pan & Zoom (also known as Ken Burns effect) will animate the image and/or title of a slide. You can enable Pan & Zoom with the check box in the Slide Options, the tool bar item below the stage, or menu commands available in the Options menu and various context menus. The Stage will then display the selected slide twice: the left side is the start position, and the right side the finish position. FotoMagico will render the motion between those two positions in real time. Use the mouse or jog wheels in the Stage to apply desired position, zoom level and rotation settings of your image for both start and finish state of the Pan & Zoom animation. The Image Options and Title Options contain a control for selecting the timing for the Animation. See Fine Tuning Pan & Zoom Animation on page 16 for more details.
TIP To create a compelling slideshow quickly, drag a couple of slides to the Storyboard, select them all and choose the Randomize Motion command from the Options menu. This will add random settings of Pan & Zoom motion to the selected slides.

OPTIONS

13

Duration The duration determines how long the animation of a slide takes. If the continue type is set to After Duration then it also determines how long the slide is shown, before the slideshow advances to the next slide.
TIP The image duration cannot be shorter than the transition duration of the preceding slide. If you need a shorter image duration for a given slide, you need to decrease the amount of time for the transition of the preceding slide. If you apply a very short duration for a given slide, chances are the succeeding image won't get preloaded quickly enough. In this case, the slideshow will advance as soon as the image of the next slide has been completely loaded into video memory. Previous versions of FotoMagico didn't permit values below 1 second. FotoMagico 2 does. However, it is important to keep in mind that large images may require a certain amount of time until they're loaded into video memory, so using very short duration may not work properly during live presentations on slower computers. In these cases the duration will be as long as is necessary to load the succeeding image. Most text entry fields allow for higher values than the slider does. Duration can exceed the maximum value of 60 seconds, if you type a higher value in the text entry field.

TIP

TIP

TIP

Continue Type After Duration - Set the image duration with the duration slider or by entering numeric values in the adjacent text field. The slide will be shown for the specified duration before advancing to the next slide. At Mouse Click - The slideshow will pause at this point until you press the mouse button to continue. Even though the slideshow is paused while waiting for the mouse click, audio continues to play in a seamless way. In this case you may want the audio to play in a endless loop. At Audio Marker - The slideshow will advance to the next slide as soon as an audio marker in the currently playing audio item is reached.
TIP If you choose continue at audio marker, make sure the audio item contains some audio markers, or your slideshow will get stuck. See Audio Options on page 18.

Transitions
This is where you select type, duration and other parameters for the transition from the current slide to the next.
TIP TIP In order to change the transition for multiple slides at once, select the slides in the Storyboard and choose the desired transition type in the Options panel. The transition type affects both image and audio. If you use e.g. a dissolve transition, and below that transition are two adjacent audio items in the Storyboard, those audio items will be crossfaded. The table below lists each transition type and how it works with image and audio.

Type - Choose from a list of several transitions. A description of each transition follows below. Duration - Set the time that the transition will take to complete. Changing the transition duration does
not change the total duration of the slideshow.
TIP The transition duration cannot be longer than the image duration of the succeeding slide. If you want a longer transition duration, you need to increase the image duration of the succeeding slide.

14

Transitions

List of Transitions
Name Cut Fade Dissolve Linear Wipe Image Effect Simply cuts from current slide to the next one. No additional parameters. Fades out current slide and fades in to next slide. Cross dissolves from current slide to next slide. Creates a wipe effect between current and next slide. Parameters are softness (0%-100%) and angle (0-360). Softness 0% creates hard edges, while 100% produces a soft edged effect that almost looks like a dissolve. Circular Wipe Creates a round wipe effect between current and next slide. Parameters are softness (0%-100%) and direction, which can be inward or outward. Angular Wipe Creates a clock-like wipe effect between current and next slide. There is one additional parameter: direction, which can be left (counter clockwise) or right (clockwise). Slide Slides the next slide over the current one. You can choose the direction of the slide effect in 90 increments (up, down, right, left). Push The next slide pushes the current slide out of sight. You can choose the direction of the slide effect in 90 increments (up, down, right, left). The 3D option first pushes the image away before moving it over. Twirl Creates an effect similar to flushing the current slide down the toilet. There is one additional parameter: direction, which can be left (counter clockwise) or right (clockwise). Zoom Zooms from current slide to the next slide. Parameters are zoom factor (2x-1000x) and zoom direction, which can be in or out. Aperture Creates the camera-typical lens aperture. Flip 3D effect that flips over current image to reveal next image on the backside. Cube The images of the current and next slides are displayed on the faces of a cube. The transition rotates the cube, so that the current slide is moved out of sight, while the next slide is moved into sight. You can choose the direction of the slide effect in 90 increments (up, down, right, left). Shuffle Similar to shuffling a deck of cards. Topple Similar to flipping a rolodex card. Audio Effect No fading Fade out, fade in Cross fade Cross fade

Cross fade Cross fade

Cross fade Cross fade

Fade out, fade in

Cross fade Fade out, fade in Fade out, fade in Cross fade

Cross fade Cross fade

Images Options File: When a single slide is selected, the file name of the image will be displayed here. If you want to
OPTIONS 15

replace the image, while keeping all other parameters, like animation, color, etc, select the Choose File command from the popup menu next to the file name.
TIP When you replace an image in a slide, you will probably have to adjust the position and zoom factors for the new image.

Animation: When Pan & Zoom animation is enabled in the Slide Options you can use the Animation bar
to fine tune animation timing. See Fine Tuning Pan & Zoom Animation on page 16 for more details.

Color: Use this feature to apply non-destructive color correction to the images of selected slides. Color
correction can be used to modify the color tint, saturation, and lightness (gamma) of an image. In the popup menu you can select from two different user interfaces: color wheel or color sliders.
TIP The effects of the color correction are visible live in the Stage and Storyboard. If you have multiple slides selected, the Stage does not display an image, so the effects are only visible in the Storyboard. If you have several images of matching color tint, but a few stick out with a different tint, you can select these images and adjust their tint to match the other images. To create black & white version of an image simply reduce the saturation to 0%. Color correction is only available in FotoMagico Pro.

TIP TIP PRO

Fine Tuning Pan & Zoom Animation

This section will show you how to fine tune pan & zoom animation. First you need to turn on animation by checking the Pan & Zoom check box. The Stage Area now displays the currently selected slide twice - the start position on the left side, and the finish position on the right side. Click on the left image, then zoom, rotate, and drag it until the start position looks right to you. Repeat the same for the finish position on the right side of the Stage Area. During playback the image will be smoothly animated from the start to the finish position.
TIP To preview the animation press the space bar key.

Fine-tuning Timing The animation bars in the Image Options and Title Options provide fine control over animation timing. Drag the blue and white triangles to set a initial delay, ease in, ease out, and final delay of the animation. The small popup to the right provides a few presets to get you started. By default the image is animated at constant speed:

The bar represents the total time for which a slide is visible. The shaded yellow area on the left represents the incoming transition, i.e. the length of time for which the transition from the previous slide is still happening. The shaded yellow area on the right represents the outgoing transition or time the transition to the next slide is going on. It is important to keep in mind that while a transition is in progress, an image may only be partially visible. For this reason you may want to restrict your Pan & Zoom animation to the white
16 Fine Tuning Pan & Zoom Animation

area, i.e. the period of time when no transition is occurring and an image is completely visible. Let's look at an example to make this concept more obvious:

The image above shows a scenario where animation starts right after the incoming transition has ended. It then eases in, i.e. gradually picks up speed and proceeds at constant speed. After a while, it eases out again and finishes right before the outgoing transition starts. To control the exact timing of the animation, simply drag the blue and white triangles below the bar. The left blue triangle controls the exact point in time when the animation begins. The white triangles control easing in and out, while the right blue triangle determines when the animation ends. Example 1

These settings have the following effects: The slide will pause briefly at the start position before a slowly easing in the Pan & Zoom animation. Animation will continue at constant speed until the end of the slide duration. Example 2

With this setting the Pan & Zoom animation will start immediately. The motion will ease out towards the finish position and briefly pause before advancing to the next slide. Animating Titles Titles can be animated just like images. However, there is one additional feature available for titles, which is not present for images: You can control title opacity over time. To control opacity, draw the blue and white triangle of the Opacity Bar in the Title Options.

OPTIONS

17

The example above has the following effect: Shortly after the slide has become completely visible, the title will fade in. It will stay visible for the rest of the slide duration.
TIP Please note the red area in the Animation bar: It represents the sections where a title is completely invisible. You may want to restrict the animation to that part of the slide duration where the title is visible. To achieve this simply drag the blue triangles inwards, so that animation doesn't overlap with any red areas.

Audio Options
If you select multiple audio items in the Storyboard, any changes you make will be applied to all of them. Looping Checking the Mode: Audio Loops check box will do the following: If the audio is not long enough for the slides, it will loop until the last slide is passed. This is especially useful for interactive presentations when you don't know how long it will take to present a sequence of slides. Volume Adjust the volume slider beneath a selected audio item. It lets you adjust audio items' volumes relative to each other and works much like Sound Check in iTunes, but gives you control over the amount of relative volume. Audio Editor Use the editor to preview your audio item. The Play/Pause button starts and stops playback of the selected audio item. Use the in-point and out-point markers to trim away the beginning and/or end of an audio item. Click the M Button to set an audio marker at the current position in the song. This is the same as clicking the + button in the Markers section, which is described below. Markers Audio markers are used to synchronize slide transitions with the beat of the music. Using audio markers requires the following steps: Play the audio in the editor. When you want a transition to occur, click on the M or + button. This adds a new audio marker. The marker is visible as a small tick mark below the bar in the player LCD display. It is also listed numerically in the Markers table. Use the - button to remove a selected audio marker in the table. Once you are done setting all your audio markers drag the audio editor playhead to the beginning and play again to review the markers. The M button will flash in red when an audio marker is passed. If an audio marker is not set correctly, you can adjust its position by editing its time code in the table. Double click a line in the table to edit the time code.
18 Audio Options

 Once you are satisfied with the audio markers, go to the Slide Options and set the continue type of the
slides above the audio item to Continue at Audio Marker.
TIP With audio markers you can synchronize slide transitions with the beat of your music. If audio markers are placed fairly close together, exact timing cannot be guaranteed, however. FotoMagico needs to load up coming image files and titles before it can proceed to the next slide. If an audio marker was missed in the process, the transition to the next slide will occur when the next audio marker is passed. This limitation only applies to a live presentation. When exporting your slideshow to a QuickTime movie, the exact timing is always respected.

Title Options
Each slide can have one title. A title can have multiple fonts, styles, colors, paragraph alignments, etc. and span several lines of text. You can modify text attributes using the standard Mac OS X font panel or the menu command available in the Format menu. You may also paste graphics into a title. To edit a title, double click it in the Stage. The title frame will switch from a thin frame to a thicker frame with two resizing handles on the left and right edge. The text is already selected so you can start typing. If you want to reflow the text, click on one of the handles to resize the width of the title's frame. Click the font buttons to show/hide the Font Panel and Color Panel. Click on the alignment buttons to change the alignment of the selected text. If a title is currently being edited (thick selection frame), each paragraph in a title can have a different alignment. If a title is not currently being edited (thin selection frame) the alignment is applied to the entire text of a title. Use the Opacity bar to fade title in/out. See Fine Tuning Pan & Zoom Animation on page 16. Use the Animation bar to control the timing of title animation. See Fine Tuning Pan & Zoom Animation on page 16.
TIP TIP TIP If you want to apply modifications to multiple titles at once, select several slides in the Storyboard. Then make the desired modifications. In the Font Panel you can use advanced typographic features like shadows, ligatures, etc... The Font Panel also includes controls for changing kerning and leading. Click on the + or - buttons to increase or decrease kerning or leading of the selected text. Press the shift key to go in 10x increments. You can create transparent titles by reducing the opacity in the Color Panel. Please note that this will affect the entire title. You cannot change the opacity of individual characters separately.

TIP

Notes
Use the text field to enter notes for the selected slide. This may help you remember the narration for your slideshow presentation.

OPTIONS

19

FOTOMAGICO PREFERENCES
Application Preferences
This is where you apply settings that affect application's behaviour globally. In order to bring up the preferences pane, select Preferences from the FotoMagico menu or press Command-Semicolon. Preference settings are grouped into five different areas, each of which is represented by a tab in the preferences window: General This will present you with these options: Show Splash Screen - decide, whether or not to see FotoMagico's splash screen after launching the application Create New Document at Start up - when checked, this will create an empty document after launching the application Show Assistant When Creating New Document - will bring up an assistant that guides through the process of setting up a document Auto Expand Options Group - automatically reveals those options controls that are relevant for the currently selected object Images Sets options for the Images Panel: Image Library: iPhoto or Aperture - select your default image repository here. Either one or the other can be selected.
PRO Using images from Aperture is only supported in FotoMagico Pro.

Image Editor - lets you choose your preferred editing application, e.g. Adobe Photoshop Appearance - determines how image thumbnails are being displayed in the Images Panel Display Border - will draw a border around image thumbnails Display Shadow - creates a drop shadow around image thumbnails Display Name - displays image names Background Color - allows you to choose a shade of black as background color of the Images Panel
Authoring Allows you to set options that apply globally throughout the authoring process. Zoom to 100% - inserts image at original size.
TIP This may crop certain areas of the image in order to fit it onto the stage and make sure that Action Safe and Title Safe areas are respected.

20

Application Preferences

 Zoom to Fill Stage Completely - will scale the image to cover the entire stage area as set in the Stage
Size Settings.

Zoom to Show Whole Image - will scale the image, if necessary, so that no area gets accidentally
cropped.

Random Pan & Zoom - applies random Pan & Zoom parameters.
TIP These settings are being used whenever you insert images in the storyboard. It doesn't keep you from manually changing any of these settings at a later stage.

Alignment Guides Display Alignment Guides - will display alignment guide lines when dragging an image Stage, Objects Color Panels - allow you to set a custom color for the alignment guide lines. Play Snap Sound - plays an audio event, if image or title box position is correctly aligned.
Playing Options that apply when presenting your slideshow. Overlays: Visualize Interactive Control - Displays overlays during live presentation when pausing, stepping forward or back, and changing volume. Burning Allows you to choose your preferred TV standard and burning application. TV Standard - please choose NTSC or PAL, whichever standard is the default one in your country of residence. Burn with - select, whether to burn DVDs with (default) Apple iDVD or Roxio Toast.
TIP Only applications installed on your machine will be displayed in the popup menu. For iDVD, version 5.x and 6.x are supported. Toast versions 6, 7 and 8 are supported. Older versions of either application will probably not show up and definitely not work.

Software Update Decide, whether and how often FotoMagico will look for updates. Check for new versions - according to whatever you set in this popup menu, FotoMagico will check Never - not at all Monthly - every month Weekly - every week Daily - every day In addition to that, you always get to Check Now when hitting the according button next to the popup menu.

FOTOMAGICO PREFERENCES

21

Slideshow Settings
These settings control important basic presentation aspects of your slideshow, e.g. aspect ratio and image size in relation to a given presentation device. To get to the settings sheet, select Settings from the Slideshow menu. Settings Stage Size: This popup menu allows you to conveniently match the size of the stage area to e.g. the size of the display you're using, to the size of an Apple Cinema Display or to a choice of common sizes, e.g. a High Definition or regular TV set.
TIP TIP As soon as you override the predefined values by customized ones, the popup will switch to Custom to accurately reflect your choice. FotoMagico defaults new slideshows to the size of your main screen assuming that you will play your slideshows mostly on your computer. If you create a slideshow for playback on TV or a different screen, we recommend adjusting the settings prior to authoring your slideshow.

When changing the stage size all items will be resized automatically in order to preserve appearance as closely as possible. Please inspect all slides after a change to make sure everything still looks as intended. Background Color: Click the Color tab to bring up the system wide built-in color chooser palette. Choosing a different color here will change the default black background of your slideshow to the color of your choice.
TIP The opacity setting will not be applied to the background, i.e. is not supported to make the background of your slideshow transparent.

Options: Check this box to loop your slideshow. When enabled, a slideshow will play until ESC-key is
being pressed. This mode is useful for kiosks or product demos. Watermark (FotoMagico Pro) Push the Choose... button to access the file locator dialog and select an image to be used as a watermark.
TIP Prepare a logo or copyright message to superimpose this upon your slideshow presentation and thus protect your intellectual property.

Use the Remove button to eliminate the superimposed watermark. Opacity - This will control the amount of opaqueness of the superimposed image, so the slideshow
doesn't get covered by the watermark image. Info Enter Author, Copyright and Description in the according fields.

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Slideshow Settings

PRESENTING YOUR SLIDESHOW

There are two modes in which to view your slideshow: Play in window and Present in full screen mode. Presenting support multi-monitor setups, playback can be controlled interactively via Keyboard and mouse or the Apple Remote. You can activate those presentation modes via menu command, through the transport buttons between Storyboard and Stage area and by pressing keyboard short cuts. In addition, you can quickly preview a single slide by pressing the space bar or selecting Preview Motion from the Options menu.

Play in window
In order to preview your slideshow or short sequences of it, either choose Play from the Slideshow menu click the left one of the two Play buttons below the stage area or press Command-Shift-P keys on the keyboard. If no slides are selected in the storyboard, FotoMagico will run the slideshow from the playhead position to the end. If you want to stop the preview, either press Escape, Command-Period or choose Stop from the Slideshow menu. If you have selected some slides in the storyboard, it will let you preview those and then stop automatically.

Present in full screen

If you want to present your slideshow or segments of it, choose Present from the Slideshow menu click the right one of the two Play buttons below the stage area or press Command-P keys on the keyboard.
TIP By default, FotoMagico will always play from the playhead position to the end when running a full screen presentation, regardless of whether or not you have selected any slides in the storyboard.

Multi-screen setup If there is more than one display device available (e.g. a mobile Mac connected to an external display or a projector), you can select Present on screen... and choose, which screen to display your slideshow on.

PRESENTING YOUR SLIDESHOW

23

Selecting the presentation screen works much like Display preferences panel in the System Preferences. The key short cut for this presentation mode is Command-Option-P.
TIP You may notice some deviation from the slide duration you specified, if your hardware isn't able to load images fast enough. This can be the case when using excessive image size or resolution and even more so, if FotoMagico needs to scale your images to match the requirements of the selected presentation device. Another common reason for delayed display are excessively short duration intervals between slides or a combination of this and above mentioned image sizes. In all of these cases, loading the image entirely into the graphic card's memory has priority over your duration and transition settings. In other words: Images come first, where FotoMagico will load the images as quickly as possible and then continue presenting the slideshow without interruption.

Interactively controlling playback

Slideshows can be controlled interactively while playing back. This is independent of whether you play the slideshow inside FotoMagico in a window, full screen, a stand alone player or a screen saver. The following controls are available: Volume Control - Use the scroll wheel of your mouse or Apple Remote volume keys to control the master volume. Lower the volume during commentary segments and increase it when the music is more important. Pause/play slideshow - Press the space bar to pause the slideshow or the Play/Pause button on Apple's Remote. Please note that audio will continue to play, while images are being halted. Advance/Go backwards - Press the right arrow key or the Fast Forward button on the Apple Remote to advance to the next slide. Press the left arrow key or Rewind button on the Apple Remote to go back to the preceding slide. As soon as the image has finished loading the transition will occur. Stop slideshow - Press Command-Period keys or the ESC-key to stop the presentation at any time. Image and audio will fade out before the slideshow stops.

Apple Remote
The playback of FotoMagico can be fully controlled via the Apple Remote delivered with most recent Macs. All transport and volume keys on the remote work as expected, Menu stops playback.

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Interactively controlling playback

SHARING SLIDESHOWS
After you have created and played a slideshow in Boinx FotoMagico, you may want to share your slideshow with others, who do not have FotoMagico or even a Mac computer. Boinx FotoMagico offers a variety of options to share your slideshows:
Standalone Player Creates a stand-alone player application that can be Expiration features played on any Mac running Mac OS X Tiger or later. As a only available in player contains high resolution images and can be cont- FotoMagico Pro rolled interactively, it is the best way to share a slideshow with anybody using a Mac. This plugin helps you to create a movie that can then be burned to a DVD using a third-party application such as iDVD or Roxio Toast Titanium. Due to the limitations of the NTSC and PAL video standards the result will not look as good as the original slideshow, but can it played on any DVD player connected to a TV or projector. Creates a movie suitable for putting on a web page. This plugin can also create a great looking web page based on an (extendable) set of themes and upload all necessary files directly to your .Mac account. Creates a movie that plays on your iPod (iPod with video, iPod classic or iPod nano 3rd generation) and puts it into iTunes for synching to the iPod. Similar to iPod, but using the better video capabilities of the iPhone. Create a movie that uses the full capabilities of your AppleTV, including HDTV 720p. Your movie will also be added to iTunes for synching. Creates a screen saver compatible with Mac OS X Tiger or later. Similar to the standalone player a screen saver can play the full resolution of your slideshow. Expiration features only available in FotoMagico Pro

DVD

Web

iPod

iPhone & iPod touch AppleTV

Screen Saver

HD

Produces a H.264 based HD movie ready to be played on FotoMagico Pro a high resolution TV. only The QuickTime plugin gives you access to all the tedious compression settings of QuickTime. Here you can really fine tune all aspects and even create preset settings for future use. Similar to the QuickTime plugin, but specialized for MP4 movies that can be played on most devices, like mobile phones, game hardware etc. FotoMagico Pro only

QuickTime Movie

MP4 Movie

FotoMagico Pro only

PRO

Some plugins are only available in FotoMagico Pro. Standalone Players and Screensavers can be created with all versions of FotoMagico, but expiration features are only available in FotoMagico Pro.

Image Quality and Distribution Reach

Some of the choices listed above provide excellent image quality, but a limited distribution reach, while other choices reach a wider audience, but with reduced image quality. Keep this tradeoff in mind when choosing how to share your slideshow.

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Standalone players, screen savers, and presenting from within FotoMagico provide the best possible image quality, but require a Mac computer to present the slideshow. Burning the slideshow to a DVD lets anybody with a consumer DVD player view the slideshow, but image quality is reduced due to technical limitations of the video format. Exporting a movie for handheld devices like an iPod or iPhone will let you watch a slideshow on the go, but image quality is limited by the small LCD screen. Exporting your slideshow for the web lets anybody watch your slideshow, but image quality is limited by bandwidth limits of typical internet connections.

Sharing Your Slideshow

Select the Share (Export)... command from the File menu. An assistant will appear that guides you through steps necessary to share your slideshow. The first page of this assistant lets you pick how you want to share your slideshow. Select from one of the choices in the upper half of this page:

The lower half of this page displays some info about the selected choice. A short description and the quality indicator tells you what to expect from each choice. The quality indicator gives you a hint about the amount of image quality that is retained from the original slideshow. Standalone players and screensaver always retain 100% quality because they use the FotoMagico slideshow engine. For this reason they are the preferred choice to share a slideshow at full quality. All other choices export your slideshow to an intermediate format (usually a QuickTime movie), which results in some image quality loss.
TIP For some choices (e.g. DVD) the quality will always be the same, but in other cases (e.g web or QuickTime) the quality can vary greatly, depending on the output size, framerate, and compression options that are chosen. For this reason the quality indicator can only give your a rough estimate of what to expect.

Once you have made your choice click on the Continue button. The assistant will guide you through the necessary steps to share your slideshow.

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Sharing Your Slideshow

Creating a Standalone Player

Once your slideshow is finished you may want to share it with other people who do not have FotoMagico installed on their computer. Creating a standalone player is the best option, because it displays the slideshow with the original FotoMagico engine, thus retaining the full quality of your slideshow. Select the Share (Export)... command from the File menu. An assistant will appear that guides you through steps necessary to create a standalone player. Select the Player icon and click on the Continue button.
TIP Standalone players are compatible with Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or newer, which have a resonably modern graphics card. Any Macintosh computer that is able to run Boinx FotoMagico can also run a standalone player. If your slideshow has missing image or audio files you will first see a page that lists the missing files. If you used protected audio files (songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store), these will also be listed. The use of DRM Protected audio is not recommended as it limits the distribution of the player to 5 different computers, which need to be authorized to play the audio. For this reason it makes more sense to use unprotected audio. We recommend that you burn protected songs to an Audio CD in iTunes and reimport them back into iTunes. This strips the DRM protection from the audio files and will lead to minor loss of audio quality, but the resulting audio files can be used without any restrictions. Please refer to the iTunes Help for details on burning Audio CDs and importing songs.

TIP

TIP

Step 1 of 4: Provide Info On the first page of the assistant you can enter information about the author of the slideshow, copyright info, a web page URL, and a contact email. This information can either be displayed before or after the player is presenting the slideshow. Step 2 of 4: Select Options Now you can select expiration options. A player can be set to expire after a presenting the slideshow a certain number of times, or after a certain date.
PRO Expiration options are only available in FotoMagico Pro.

Step 3 of 4: Choose Destination Now you need to specify where the player file should be saved. FotoMagico will suggest a reasonable filename and destination folder. Should you wish to change the filename or destination folder, then click on the Choose... button. Please make sure to select a folder on a volume that has enough free disk space. Also make sure to only select a folder for which you have write permissions.
TIP If you chose a folder which does not have the correct permissions or if the volume does not have enough free disk space, then an alert will be displayed at the bottom of the assistant and the Start button will be disabled. In this case you need to choose a different folder or different volume. If none of your volumes have enough free disk space, you need to attach another external harddisk or free up some space on your internal harddisk by deleting stuff you do not need anymore.

TIP

SHARING SLIDESHOWS

27

Step 4 of 4: Exporting Now the player will be created in the destination folder you specified in the previous step. The assistant will close automatically.

Creating a DVD
Many users wish to present slideshows in the comfort of their living room, using their TV set and DVD player. While this does no justice to the quality of FotoMagico slideshows, FotoMagico helps you create a DVD of your slideshow. FotoMagico does not burn a DVD directly. Instead it creates a QuickTime or DV movie file and relies on third party software like Apple iDVD or Roxio Toast Titanium to burn the DVD. Preparing Your Slideshow Television sets come in two different shapes: traditional TVs with 4:3 aspect ratio and widescreen TVs with 16:9 aspect ratio. To make sure that your slideshow looks good on a wide range modern TVs we recommend that you create your slideshow with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The HDTV (1080) choice when creating a new slideshow document is the best choice for this, because it creates a high resolution 16:9 slideshow. If you already have an existing slideshow with a different aspect ratio you may want go the slideshow settings and change the stage size by selecting Settings... from the Slideshow menu.

Slideshows that do not have the correct aspect ratio can be made to match the aspect ratio of your TV screen. There are two different choices: Letterboxing and cropping.

Letterboxed

Cropped

Cropping cuts away part of the image to make it match your TV. Letterboxing adds black bars at the top and bottom of the image. Pillarboxing is a rare case: it adds black bars to the left and right of the image and only happens if you present a 4:3 slideshow on a widescreen television. Exporting Your Slideshow
28 Creating a DVD

Select the Share (Export)... command from the File menu. An assistant will appear that guides you through steps necessary to create a DVD. Select the DVD icon and click on the Continue button.
TIP If your slideshow has missing image or audio files you will first see a page that lists the missing files. If you used protected audio files (songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store), these will also be listed. DRM Protected audio files cannot be used. We recommend that you burn those songs to an Audio CD in iTunes and reimport them back into iTunes. This strips the DRM protection from the audio files and will lead to minor loss of audio quality, but the resulting audio files can be used without any restrictions. Please refer to the iTunes Help for details on burning Audio CDs and importing songs.

TIP

Step 1 of 4: Select Options The first step lets you select some options. Select the application which should be used to burn the DVD (Apple iDVD or Roxio Toast Titanium), the video standard (NTSC or PAL), and the aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9). The 16:9 choice is only available if the stage size of your slideshow is 16:9 or wider.
TIP If the aspect ratio of your slideshow and the aspect ratio does not match, then a yellow warning will be displayed at the bottom of the page. In this case you need to decide whether the slideshow should be letterboxed or cropped to match the aspect ratio of the DVD. Letterboxing will add black bars at the top and the bottom of the image, while cropping will cut away parts of the image to make it match the aspect ratio of the DVD.

TIP

The preview on the right side will show you what to expect from each choice. Use the left and right arrow buttons below the preview to step through each slide of the slideshow. Step 2 of 4: Choose Destination Now you need to specify where the intermediate file should be saved. In most cases this will be a DV file (which requires quite a bit of disk space). This DV file will be used as input for iDVD or Toast Titanium. FotoMagico will suggest a reasonable filename and destination folder. Should you wish to change the filename or destination folder, then click on the Choose... button. Please make sure to select a folder on a volume that has enough free disk space. Also make sure to only select a folder for which you have write permissions. Please note that the required disk space is also displayed. This required space is the sum of the estimated size of the final output file and the size of temporary files.
TIP If you chose a folder which does not have the correct permissions or if the volume does not have enough free disk space, then an alert will be displayed at the bottom of the assistant and the Start button will be disabled. In this case you need to choose a different folder or different volume. If none of your volumes have enough free disk space, you need to attach another external harddisk or free up some space on your internal harddisk by deleting stuff you do not need anymore.

TIP

Step 3 of 4: Exporting Once you click on the Start button the exporting will begin. Exporting is usually done in 4 steps: Preparing, rendering audio, rendering video, and compressing. A progress bar for each step is displayed at the bottom

SHARING SLIDESHOWS

29

of the assistant. Depending on the duration of your slideshow this can take quite a bit of time. Go ahead and have a cup of coffee. Step 4 of 4: Finish Up The slideshow has been exported to a DV file and saved in the folder that you specified earlier. Now this DV file will be opened in the DVD burning application that you selected before (iDVD or Toast Titanium).From here on you leave FotoMagico and continue your work with the DVD burning application. For details on working with the DVD burning application refer to the iDVD or Toast Titanium help pages.
TIP Should automatic opening of the DV file in the DVD burning application fail for any reason, then launch the DVD burning application manually, and then drag the DV file from the Finder to the DVD burning application. Please note that Boinx Software will not be able to offer support for Apple iDVD or Roxio Toast Titanium. Should you have problems using these applications, please contact Apple or Roxio customer support.

TIP

Creating a Web Page

Once your slideshow is finished you may want to publish it on a web page. FotoMagico offers a simple way to export a QuickTime movie and embed it in a web page which can be customized. After exporting this slideshow can automatically be uploaded to your .Mac account or a web server. Select the Share (Export)... command from the File menu. An assistant will appear that guides you through steps necessary to create a web page. Select the Web Movie (Safari) icon and click on the Continue button.
TIP If your slideshow has missing image or audio files you will first see a page that lists the missing files. If you used protected audio files (songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store), these will also be listed. The use of DRM Protected audio is not recommended as it cannot be exported to QuickTime movies. We recommend that you burn protected songs to an Audio CD in iTunes and reimport them back into iTunes. This strips the DRM protection from the audio files and will lead to minor loss of audio quality, but the resulting audio files can be used without any restrictions. Please refer to the iTunes Help for details on burning Audio CDs and importing songs.

TIP

Step 1 of 6: Select Options On the first page you select the size, framerate, and the quality of the exported movie. If you specify the width, the height will be calculated automatically. If you specify the height, the width will be calculated automatically. If you enter both width and height, and the aspect ratio does not match the aspect ratio of your slideshow, you may also have to specify whether the slideshow should be letterboxed or cropped. You can enter a framerate up to 60 fps. If you enter a fairly low framerate, the motion blur framerate is enabled.

30

Creating a Web Page

Step 2 of 6: Customize Webpage The second page lets you choose a webpage design and customize it by entering some text that is to appear on this page. From the theme popup select the design you would like to use. Enter the text that is to appear on the webpage in the text fields on the left side of the page. To the right you will see a preview of the webpage.
TIP FotoMagico ships with a couple of themes pre-installed, but user can install their custom themes. The themes come as plugins with the .fmwebtheme extension. Just double-click a .fmwebtheme file in the Finder and FotoMagico will autoatically install it in the correct folder (~/Application Support/Boinx/FotoMagico/WebThemes).

Step 3 of 6: Choose Destination Now you need to specify where the exported QuickTime movie and webpage will be saved. All files will be created in a new folder. FotoMagico will suggest a reasonable folder name, but you can specify you own folder name and location by clicking on the Choose... button. Please make sure to select a volume that has enough free disk space and write permissions.
TIP If you chose a folder which does not have the correct permissions or if the volume does not have enough free disk space, then an alert will be displayed at the bottom of the assistant and the Start button will be disabled. In this case you need to choose a different folder or different volume. If none of your volumes have enough free disk space, you need to attach another external harddisk or free up some space on your internal harddisk by deleting stuff you do not need anymore.

TIP

Step 4 of 6: Upload to Server If you want the webpage to be automatically uploaded to a web server after the slideshow has been exported, then provide the necessary information on this page. You can either upload to a .Mac account or to a web server via FTP or SFTP. Select the kind of upload from the Upload popup menu. Enter you credentials in the text fields below the popup menu. You may have to enter your password to authorize the upload.
TIP TIP Please note that checking your credentials make take some times as this requires contecting the server over the internet. If the .mac login was successful have a look at the information at the bottom of the page. It will list the amount of free space on your .Mac iDisk.

Step 5 of 6: Exporting Once you click on the Start button the exporting will begin. Exporting is usually done in 4 steps: Preparing, rendering audio, rendering video, compressing video, and uploading webpage. A progress bar for each step is displayed at the bottom of the assistant. Depending on the duration of your slideshow this can take quite a bit of time. Go ahead and have a cup of coffee. Step 6 of 6: Finish Up The slideshow has been exported to webpage and optionally uploaded to a web server. You can now visit this webpage by clicking on the Visit Webpage button.
SHARING SLIDESHOWS 31

Creating a Custom QuickTime Movie

Should none of the other sharing options be sufficient for your needs, you may want to consider exporting your slideshow to a custom QuickTime movie. Please note, that this is not for the faint of heart, as quite a bit of QuickTime knowledge may be required to obtain good results. Select the Share (Export)... command from the File menu. An assistant will appear that guides you through steps necessary to create a web page. Select the QuickTime Movie icon and click on the Continue button.
PRO TIP Exporting to custom QuickTime movies is only available in FotoMagico Pro. If your slideshow has missing image or audio files you will first see a page that lists the missing files. If you used protected audio files (songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store), these will also be listed. The use of DRM Protected audio is not recommended as it cannot be exported to QuickTime movies. We recommend that you burn protected songs to an Audio CD in iTunes and reimport them back into iTunes. This strips the DRM protection from the audio files and will lead to minor loss of audio quality, but the resulting audio files can be used without any restrictions. Please refer to the iTunes Help for details on burning Audio CDs and importing songs.

TIP

Step 1 of 4: Select Options On the first page you select the size, pixel aspect ratio, framerate, and the compression options of the exported movie. If you only specify the width or the height for the QuickTime movie, the missing value will be calculated automatically. If you specify both the width and height, then this size will be used, even if the aspect ratio does not match the aspect ratio of your slideshow. In this case you will get radio buttons that let you choose whether you want to letterbox or crop your slideshow to make it match your export movie size. If you specify both width and height, you also get the option to enter a custom pixel aspect ratio, which may be necessary if your exported movie is indended for video output, which often requires non-square pixels. Framerates between 1 fps and 60 fps are supported. The Motion Blur checkbox will be enabled for lower framerate. Using motion blur help void low framerate artifacts, but rendering time are significantly increased. Click on the Customize... to change the QuickTime compression settings. There are numerous QuickTime codecs to choose from and each is slightly different, so a explanation in these help pages is not possible. Please note that some prior knowledge with QuickTime compression settings is required to achieve good results!
TIP Once you find good settings that lead to acceptable results you may want to save them for later access. Choose the Save Preset... command from the Settings popup. Specify a name for the preset file. From now on, you can recall these settings by simply selecting the name of the preset from the Settings popup. Boinx Software Support can help you with specific questions about how to use FotoMagico, but due to limited resources will not be able to help with general questions about QuickTime compression settings. You may want to contact Apple Support in this case.

TIP

32

Creating a Custom QuickTime Movie

Step 2 of 4: Choose Destination Now you need to specify where the exported QuickTime movie will be saved. FotoMagico will suggest a reasonable filename, but you can specify you name and location by clicking on the Choose... button. Please make sure to select a folder that has enough free disk space and write permissions.
TIP If you chose a folder which does not have the correct permissions or if the volume does not have enough free disk space, then an alert will be displayed at the bottom of the assistant and the Start button will be disabled. In this case you need to choose a different folder or different volume. If none of your volumes have enough free disk space, you need to attach another external harddisk or free up some space on your internal harddisk by deleting stuff you do not need anymore.

TIP

Step 3 of 4: Exporting Once you click on the Start button the exporting will begin. Exporting is usually done in 4 steps: Preparing, rendering audio, rendering video, and compressing video. A progress bar for each step is displayed at the bottom of the assistant. Depending on the duration of your slideshow this can take quite a bit of time. Go ahead and have a cup of coffee. Step 4 of 4: Finish Up The slideshow has been exported to a QuickTime movie. You may now further process it in QuickTime Player or other video editing applications like iMovie or Final Cut Pro. Click on the Open in QuickTime Player button to open the movie or click on the Reveal in Finder button to locate the file.
TIP Provided that you used the correct settings, you can also create a DVD with iDVD, Toast Titanium, or DVD Studio Pro. Simply drag the exported movie file to your DVD auhtoring application of choice and proceed from there.

SHARING SLIDESHOWS

33