Photo slideshow advice in Vegas Pro 8

[stantheman1976]

Slideshows aren't something I have to do very often but I'm working on one now for a wedding I did. I'm looking for advice on how to handle vertical pictures. The horizontal ones aren't an issue because the whole thing shows up but the vertical ones I get the black on either side and the photo only takes up about the middle third of the screen. So I can go to Pan/Crop and use Match Output Aspect but then I can only cover part of the whole image. How can I deal with this properly? Is there a way to do this in widescreen and still make it look right? The wedding video was shot in 16:9 and I wanted to do the slideshow the same if I could but fullscreen seems to be easier.

[guns1inger]

How do you fit a round peg in a square hole ?

There is no absolute answer, only aesthetic choices for you to make.

Some options include

1. Ignore it and go ahead with black bars. If people are watching the bars then you have already bored them to death and the photos don't matter.

2. Use Track Motion to zoom, pan or tilt around the photo to make things a little more dynamic

3. Drop a looping pattern in behind the photos so that the bars aren't static, but have some life to them. Make sure it isn't too distracting.

4. Similar to the above, but using the original photo, zoomed and faded, as a background.

You can find free loops at some of these links : http://www.thecliparchive.com/

And also from here : http://www.footagefirm.com/footage/backgrounds/index.htm or just browse and download individual loops like this : http://stockfootageforfree.com/free-looping-background-falling-diamonds/ or this : http://stockfootageforfree.com/free-looping-background-blue-swirl/

[stantheman1976]

I don't want those black bars so there's the challenge. The video of the ceremony turned out nice and I want the slideshow to look as good. Right now I'm about 10 photos in and I'm matching the output aspect so the screen is filled. I'm finding a section of the photo that is good to start with and using track motion to zoom in or out Ken Burns style. The not too dramatic loop behind it is a good idea. I think I'll try that and see how it looks and go with whichever looks best. Thanks for the ideas.