Basic instructions to be used with any version of Photoshop

Photoshop How-To for Soundslides (5 Steps)

Below are four (4) screen captures from Photoshop. They show how to resize and encode a photo for use in Soundslides.

The preliminary step, of course, is to transfer your photos from your camera to your hard disk. You'll need to figure out how to do that with your camera.

Open the photo file in Photoshop. Use the Crop tool (not shown here) as needed. If you do not know how to CROP and RESIZE photos in Photoshop, see this brief tutorial. You may also want to use some image adjustments such as Auto Levels or Auto Contrast (these are on the Image menu > Adjustments) to tone your photo.

After you finish adjusting your photo, use Image Size (on the Image menu) to resize your photo. This is shown below. FIRST change the resolution to 72. THEN make sure the two circled attributes match the screenshot below BEFORE you type in the width or height. Type only the pixel width or the pixel height for any image -- the other measure will adjust automatically. FINALLY, from the menu at the bottom labeled "Resample," select Bicubic Sharper (best for reduction) -- not shown here. Click OK.

Above: Use Image Size (from the Image menu) to resize your photo.

Open the File menu and select File Info to open a dialog box (old version shown below). Soundslides will take your caption information from the Description box (CS4), so type your real captions there. (You will be able to edit them later in Soundslides.) It is also a very good idea to include your copyright information in the File Info dialog. When finished, click OK.

Above: Soundslides will take your caption information from this box. In newer versions of Photoshop, the box is labeled Description.

Open the File menu and select Save As. Give your edited photo a sensible, recognizable filename with NO SPACES and NO PUNCTUATION. (Be careful: NEVER overwrite your original photo file!) If you want to keep the camera filename (such as img_4103.jpg), that's okay -- but DO NOT overwrite your original file! Make sure you are saving in Format: JPEG (JPG), shown below. Pay close attention to WHERE you are saving your file (not shown). Then ... click Save.

Above: After you select Save As, this dialog box will open. The file format you need is JPG (also called JPEG).

For regular Web pages, we use Save for Web (see tutorial). But for Soundslides, we do NOT. Reason: If you Save for Web, all your caption info will disappear. It will be erased. (For regular Web pages, the caption info just increases the file size, and it is not used. For Soundslides, naturally we want to retain the caption info.)

When you save as JPEG, Photoshop will ask you for a Quality setting in the JPEG Options dialog. High quality makes a larger file size -- and a slower download for your viewers online. However -- Soundslides will compress these JPGs during import, so you should use a HIGH setting for Soundslides. (See Preparing your media files in the Soundslides manual.) The Quality setting shown below is INCORRECT -- change 7 to 12. (Note: "Baseline Optimized is correct.) After you adjust your settings, click OK. Then the new JPG file will be saved.

Above: Photoshop invites you to select a Quality setting. In the settings shown here, change 7 to 12 and Medium to High.

Please note that you should save all the edited photos for one Soundslides in one folder. You should NOT have any other photos in that folder. In other words, one folder should contain ONLY the edited photos for one Soundslides slideshow.