36. EXPORTING YOUR SLIDESHOW AS A VIDEO OR PDF

NOW THAT YOU have the music and the look of your slideshow taken care of, it’s time to export it. You’ll notice that there is a Preview button in the lower-right corner of the Slideshow module (Figure 36.1). This will create a preview that you can watch in the center workspace in Lightroom. If you want to stop the slideshow, simply click on the center of the show and it will stop.

If you click on the Play button to the right of the Preview button, the slideshow will play in full-screen mode (Figure 36.2). The Preview and Play options are great if you’re working with a slideshow and you want to present it from inside Lightroom, but more often than not, you’ll want to take this to the web.

The Export Video option in the lower-left corner of the Slideshow module will export your slideshow as a video file (Figure 36.3). You can then upload the video to a site like Vimeo or YouTube to share it with everybody. The Export PDF option creates a PDF of the slideshow with one slide per page. This is helpful when you want to send a collection of images to a client via email. Note that music will not be embedded in the PDF. If you want music, you’ll need to export a movie.

In the Export Slideshow to Video options (which you’ll see when you click on Export Video), you’ll need to set a name for your slideshow as well as pick a Video Preset. In the Video Preset drop-down menu you can choose between 1080p and 720p, or select older formats like 640 x 480 or 480 x 270. If you want to be able to email your slide-show, you’ll need to choose a relatively small format, such as 480 x 270. If you want to do something a lot bigger, use 1080p. This option is going to be the best for something like YouTube.

Figure 36.1 Previewing the slideshow in Lightroom.

Figure 36.2 The slideshow Play button.

Figure 36.3 The slideshow export options.