Slideshows have become a favorite way to share family and travel photos. However, many of us remember yawning during an endless movie with a hundred of pictures. It’s often the case that a slideshow supposed to entertain you turns into a slow monotonous torture. Our spectators as well as our pictures deserve better treatment, don’t they?

It’s amazing how different it can be when you make an animated slideshow. Applying a smart mixture of effects and playing with color settings, you can create stunning impressions. Flying over the mountains, diving into deep blue, watching the sun rising over the city… enchanting worlds of make-believe can easily be created from a dozen of ordinary pictures. All it takes is a creative approach and a decent slideshow making program with a range of image editing tools.

Here is an inspirational music slideshow: Paris. Watching a fascinating spectacle like this you might be wondering, how can I do something similar with my photos? Believe it or not, even a non-tech-savvy person can easily create a similar movie. Here are some practical tips that will help you make an animated slideshow with motion and artistic effects, and make the most of the image processing techniques found in Photo Slideshow Creator from AMS Software.

Pan & Zoom

Also known as Ken Burns effect, this is an extremely popular (and probably the easiest) technique of adding life to still images. This motion can be slow or dynamic, depending on the slide display time you set. That’s what you need to decide in the very beginning. When you want a nostalgic slideshow with gentle music, you will need to set a longer slide display time to make the imaginary camera eye slide across the picture slowly. Consequently, you’ll also have to limit the number of slides to avoid a slideshow lasting for hours.

The motion direction is defined by the X- and Y-values. For example, increasing the X-value will move the camera eye to the left across the slide. Increasing the Y-value will move it up, and vice versa. A significant increase of X and Y will result in moving beyond the edge of the slide unless you zoom in. It is also a good idea to stretch the picture before applying panoramic motion. Make sure that it doesn’t lead to missing some cute details out if sight.

Rotation

The rotation effect can make a breathtaking impression with the right pictures. It looks very natural when applied to photos taken from frog perspective – think of standing inside a cathedral dome and moving your head around while gazing at the stained glass windows. It’s better to keep it slow so that you don’t feel dizzy. And vice versa, if the shot was taken from bird perspective, combining rotation and zoom will take your spectators “down the rabbit hole”. Note that when applying motion effects in Photo Slideshow Creator you can use live preview in the slide editing window and adjust any setting details at once.

Color Effects

Changing colors will cause magical metamorphoses thanks to the fade-in / fade-out feature. For example, higher levels of brightness and saturation make most photos look better. Apply these while setting the effect to fade in. As a result the picture that appears plain will become brighter as if it was lit by the sun. This looks great on any landscape or urban photo.

Another impressive color effect can be created with the sepia filter. When you apply the “old film” effect, you can either make in fade in to age the picture in front of your eyes, or fade out which will bring ruins back to life. Use this for some special shot in the slideshow of your travel pictures. Adding a vintage touch may also be a brilliant idea for a wedding or anniversary slideshow.

Yet another trick is combining two color effects, letting one of them fade out and the other fade in. For instance, set the sepia or black & white filter for the beginning of the slide. Let it fade out, then save this setting and go on. For fading in, choose a fancy mix of colors. You can pick it moving the color hue slider. This thrilling effects change will help you tell a story of something that brought color to your life.

Everything described above lets you know how to make an animated slideshow with the Photo Slideshow Creator by AMS Software. However a few years ago the same company released a new software – SmartSHOW 3D. It makes it easier than ever to create animated slideshows complete with stylish transitions, stunning photo effects, and professionally-designed templates.

In fact the new SmartSHOW 3D’s features will let you take your slideshows to the next level. Its features include multi-layer support, fancy image masks, animated text, 3D transitions, and more. Simply put you will be able to create far more impressive animated slideshows with its help.

As you see, when you make an animated slideshow there’s a lot of room for experimenting. You are sure to discover even more smart tricks if you try – we hope you’ll share these here!