Creating a picture slideshow

If you want to create a customized slideshow using your photos or other still images, VEGAS Pro gives you the power to control every aspect of the slideshow.

If you want to create slideshows quickly, you can use the Slideshow Creator. For more information, see Inserting a Slideshow

  1. Set the duration you want each photo to be displayed on screen.

    1. From the Options menu, choose Preferences.

    2. Click the Editing tab.

    3. In the New still image length box, type the number of seconds you'd like each photo to be displayed in your movie.

      For example, if you wanted each photo to be displayed for three seconds with a one-second crossfade between photos, choose 5 seconds.

      If you have 40 images that you want to display during a three-and-a-half-minute song, choose 5.25 (210 seconds divided by 40 images).

    4. Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.

  2. If you want to automatically add crossfades between events when you add them to the timeline, you can configure cut-to-overlap conversion:

    1. From the Options menu, choose Preferences.

    2. Click the Editing tab.

    3. Select the Automatically overlap multiple selected media when added check box.

    4. In the Cut-to-overlap section of the tab, type the desired fade length in the Amount (seconds) box.

      For example, if you'd set the New still image length setting to 5 in the previous step and set the Amount (seconds) setting to 1, dragging three still images to the timeline would create three five-second events with one second of overlap between them.

      TIP If you need to, you can adjust the fade length between eventsafter adding the events to the timeline. For more information, see Creating Fades of a Specified Length

  3. Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.

  4. Select the files you want to use in the Project Media or Explorer window. For more information, see Adding media files to your project

  5. Drag the files to a video track.

  6. If you want to use transitions between events, drag a preset from the Transitions window to the overlapping area between two events. For more information, see Adding transitions

  7. For added interest, you can use event panning and cropping and keyframes add motion to your images. For example, you could pan across an image or zoom in to simulate camera motion.

    1. Click the Pan/Crop button on an event. The Event Pan/Crop dialog is displayed.

    2. Verify the Lock Aspect Ratio button is selected on the left side of the dialog, and then right-click the image on the right side of the dialog and choose Match Output Aspect from the shortcut menu. This sets the crop area to match your output frame proportions.

    3. Click the First Keyframe button to move the cursor in the keyframe controller (at the bottom of the dialog) to the beginning of the event.

    4. Adjust the selection rectangle to change the viewable portion of the event. A keyframe is created to store your crop settings at that point.

    5. Click the Last Keyframe button to move the cursor in the keyframe controller (at the bottom of the dialog) to the end of the event.

    6. Adjust the selection rectangle to change the viewable portion of the event. A keyframe is created at the end of the event.

      When you play back your project, the viewable portion of the image will be animated between the first and last keyframe settings. For example, if the crop rectangle in the first keyframe matches the image size (no cropping) and the crop rectangle in the last keyframe is small, you'll create an animated zoom effect.

      For more information, see Panning and cropping video events and Keyframe animation

  8. Add an audio file to an audio track to set your slideshow to music.