I have lost the number of times wedding couples ask me for a childhood or dating days photo montage. Today I am going to show you how to create your own photo montage for your actual day wedding-with iPhoto in less than 30 minutes.
Disclaimer
This is a basic and simple way to creating your own childhood/dating days montage. This is in no way comparable to some of the professional and custom slideshows offered by multimedia studios. In a pinch, this works very well too, if you're not too fussy about effects.
What You Need
iPhoto For Wedding Photo Slideshows
Launch your copy of iPhoto from your applications folder. The interface is very user friendly. Most operating can be accessed from the top and bottom menubar. Step 1: Importing Your Photos
Open up your copy of iPhoto. Let's import some photos. Go under the menu and select:File>Import.Navigate to the folder where you have stored your chosen pictures for you photo slideshow.
Once the import finishes, proceed to the next step.
Step 2: Select Photos and Creating Slideshow
After the import dialogue disappears, select all the photos you have just imported by clicking on the first photo. Press and hold the shift key on your keyboard, scroll to the end of the page and click on the last image.
Click on Create>Slideshow at the bottom right of the interface.
Step 3: Choosing your Slideshow Theme
Select the very first slide, click on the Text area and type in a title that you want.
There are 12 themes for you to choose from and very minor customisation. While it leaves a lot to be desired for a power-user, it is more than enough for a simple wedding slideshow.
Click on Themes on the lower-right menubar. Select a theme that you fancy. In this case, I've decided on the 'Origami' theme. After selecting your theme, you can preview it by clicking on the 'Preview' Button.
Step 4: Choosing Your Music
Music has to be in your iTunes before you are able to select it in iPhoto.
Click on Music from the lower-right menubar. Set the 'Source' to 'iTunes'. Scroll and selectyour music and click on 'Choose' at the bottom of the dialogue box.
Step 5: Exporting Your Photo Montage
Export your slideshow by Clicking on the Export button located on the bottom of the screen. Click on 'Custom Export' in the dialogue box. Select 'Movie to Quicktime Movie' from the dropdown menu and click on 'Options' to set your Movie export settings.
Under the 'Movie Settings', Select H.264 from the dropdown menu on the top of the dialogue box.
Click on 'settings' under video. Set your 'Frame Rate' to 25, 'Key Frames' to 25. Under 'Data Rate' header, set 'Restrict to' 5000 kbits/sec. Click 'Ok' once you are done.
Click 'Size' under video. From the 'Dimensions' dropdown menu, select 1280x720 HD. Click Ok once you are done.
Click 'Settings' under sound, under the 'Compressor' dropdown menu, select MPEG-4 Audio and click 'Ok' once you are done.
That's it! Click 'Ok', name your wedding slideshow, navigate to the folder that you want to save it and click on 'Save'. It will take a few good minutes to export the mov. Enjoy your wedding montage once it is done rendering.
