Creating a DVD Slide Show with Encore DVD and Photoshop CS2

CATEGORIES: Photoshop, Premiere Pro | Marcus Geduld | January 18, 2006

BY RICHARD HARRINGTON & MARCUS GEDULD

Whether you’re a wedding photographer or producing behind-the-scenes extras for a Hollywood title, you’ll need to use a DVD slide show. How else can you pack a bunch of photos onto a DVD so the viewer can flip through and watch all your great content? Unlike your video clips, photos don’t come ready for television. They’re the wrong size, they get distorted, the colors bleed, and they always seem to flicker. The answer? Give up. Okay, we’re just kidding (and wondering if people read these intro paragraphs anyway). You’ve got a lot of work cut out for you, but we’ll try to cut through the clutter and throw some powerful Photoshop actions into the mix. If you follow these steps you’ll have perfect slide shows in one-third the time.

STEP 1: Import Your Photos
You’ll need to get those photos into the computer as fast as possible. If you’re shooting digital, it’s a cinch. Just connect your camera to your computer via a USB cable (preferably 2.0), or better yet, use a dedicated memory card reader. A card reader is usually faster and doesn’t put wear and tear on the mini-ports of your camera. Transfer the files then skip to Step 3.
Create a DVD Slideshow
©ISTOCKPHOTO/MELISSA KING

STEP 2: Scan Your Photos
If you’re going to scan the photos, then place as many images on your scanner bed as possible. Be sure to leave a small gap between each image. You should be able to fit between 3–6 images depending on the size of your photos. You should scan between 150–250 ppi, this way you’ll have extra information for the touchup stage. After scanning multiple images, choose File>Automate>Crop and Straighten Photos. This will separate each image into its own document. You may need to rotate images 90° if they’re portraits.

Create a DVD Slideshow

STEP 3: Color Correct
Don’t worry about making the images broadcast safe yet. Just color correct them quickly. You may want to try running Levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels) (if you’re feeling lazy or rushed you can give Auto Levels a shot [Image>Adjustments>Auto Levels]). Just be sure to get the images white balanced by using the white eyedropper in the Levels dialog and clicking on a white area in your document. A subtle Hue/Saturation adjustment (Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation) often helps as well. Try boosting the saturation of washed out images and rolling the hue a few degrees to find the right color balance.

Create a DVD Slideshow

STEP 4: Crop to Taste
It’s time to discard the “undesirable” portions of your image (the parts that distract or seem unnecessary). Press C to select your Crop tool, click-and-drag in your image to select the region you want to keep, and click the Commit button in the Options Bar. To crop to the size of the TV, enter 720 px for Width and 534 px for Height (or 860×534 px for widescreen) in the Options Bar before you crop. This is optional, but otherwise you’ll end up with a pillarboxed (black side bars) or letterboxed (top/bottom bars) image, as your photo aspect ratio won’t match the TV.

Create a DVD Slideshow

STEP 5: Load the Video Actions
If you’re using Photoshop CS2, there are new Video Actions built in. These actions were written by Dan Brown and Richard Harrington (suggestions for additions or improvements are welcome). Open your Actions palette (if it’s not already visible) by choosing Window>Actions. From the palette’s flyout menu (click on the triangle in the upper corner), choose the Video Actions set. These actions don’t have documentation in the Help file, but an instructional step is built into the action. Delete this step once you learn how to use the action to avoid having to click OK each time you run it.

Create a DVD Slideshow

STEP 6: Broadcast Safe Luminance
There are three broadcast-safe actions. Broadcast Safe Luminance adjusts only for the black and white points of the image. It’s necessary to clamp the image to a range of 16–235 on an RGB scale to make the image work well on a television. The image will look washed out in Photoshop, but appear with full intensity on a TV screen. Select the action and press the Play button to run the action on your image.

Create a DVD Slideshow

STEP 7: Broadcast Safe Saturation (Optional)
If your image is highly saturated (especially large areas of bright red or yellow), you’ll need to accommodate for saturation. Run the Broadcast Safe Saturation action to fix problem areas. This action improves upon the built-in NTSC color filter, which produces banding and posterization in affected areas. When running this action, pay close attention to the final step. Because actions don’t support conditional logic, you’ll have to use your eyes. If the layer mask applied to the Broadcast Safe Saturation adjustment layer is empty (filled with white), throw away the adjustment layer because your image was initially Broadcast Safe for Saturation.

Create a DVD Slideshow

STEP 8: Size for Screen
It’s time to size the images and convert to the correct pixel aspect ratio for your DVD slide show. There are eight actions, but choosing the right one is easy. The options are:
NTSC or PAL (pick based on your delivery format for the country—North America and Japan use NTSC); Standard or Widescreen (match your delivery for the disc); Regular or Inset (Regular sizes the image to fit within the height or width constraints, while Inset adjusts the image to fall inside the action-safe area to avoid any pixels being cut off when displayed on television).

Create a DVD Slideshow

STEP 9: Reduce Interlace Flicker
Many times, small details in an image will cause a flicker or shimmer to appear on the screen. This often happens because the lines are thinner than a pixel, and when the interlaced video image loads (half of the picture loads every sixtieth of a second), lines appear, then disappear. The solution is to slightly blur the image. But instead of softening everything, run the Interlace Flicker Removal action to only soften the problem areas. Be sure to select the actual photo layer, not an adjustment layer. You must run this action last as sizing the image can add flicker.

Create a DVD Slideshow

Step 10: Save as Uncompressed
After all of this cleanup work (hey, you can charge more for perfection), the last thing you want to do is gunk things up with bad file format choices. Never use JPEG or GIF (which are well-suited for the Web) because they compress the image. Choose an uncompressed file format, such as PICT, TIFF, or TARGA. Feeding larger, clearer images into Encore will actually result in better and smaller compression. You often hear, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Well, the same holds true for gold.

Create a DVD Slideshow

Step 11: Create Project and Add Timeline
Launch Adobe Encore DVD. Create a new project (or open an existing one). From the Project tab, click the New Timeline button (it’s the seventh button). Give your Timeline a name in the Project window, then save the Project and give it a name as well. The Timeline can contain stills or video, but not both. If you want to mix video and stills, you’ll need to load them into an application like Premiere Pro to make the edit.

Create a DVD Slideshow

Step 12: Import Your Stills
It’s now time to import your images into your project. Select the Project tab so it’s empty. Create a new folder to hold your stills by clicking the New Folder button and naming it Slideshow 1. Select the folder, then right-click on it and choose Import as Asset. Navigate to your files—you can Shift-click to select multiple items or Control-click to select noncontiguous items. Click Open.

Create a DVD Slideshow

Step 13: Add Images to Your Timeline
Drag your slides to the video track of your Timeline. The Edit Still Duration for Slideshows dialog should pop up. Enter a desired duration, such as 10 seconds, for each still. Adobe Encore DVD will automatically insert a chapter point at the start of each still. You can adjust the end point of a still to make it shorter or longer by dragging its edge.

Create a DVD Slideshow

Step 14: Test It
It’s a good idea to give your slide show a test. Right-click on the slide show in the Project window and choose Preview from Here. The Project Preview window launches and you can try out the slide show. Be sure to watch your slide show all the way through to ensure things work well.

Create a DVD Slideshow