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Aperture and Keynote
One great feature about using a Mac is that Mac developers often go the extra mile to make their app integrate into the system. For example, Keynote (as well as a number of other apps) has a media browser that lets you see your Aperture and iPhoto photo libraries. This makes it incredibly easy to create a presentation!
Before you can use the media browser, make sure Aperture is set to generate previews for your project, or at least the images you care about using in Keynote. Under Aperture > Preferences, click the Previews tab. If "New projects automatically generate previews" is unchecked, then in the Browser, select the images you want to use in Keynote, control-click on them, and select Update Preview. Furthermore, under Preferences' Previews tab, make sure "Share previews with iLife and iWork" is selected.
Now switch over to Keynote and open your presentation. Choose View > Show Media Browser or click the Media button in the toolbar. Open up the Aperture group. If you don't see an Aperture group, run Aperture and make sure it has a photo library selected. Within the Aperture group, you'll see all of your albums and projects.
Drag one or more images onto a slide to add the image(s) to that slide. However, what photographers often want to do is have each image be on a new slide. Make sure View > Navigator is selected, so that you're seeing the Navigator on the left in Keynote. Then, drag your image(s) onto the Navigator. You'll see a triangle appear like in the screenshot, and when you drop the images, Keynote will add a new slide for each image. Isn't that useful?
I have one beef with the current iteration of Keynote. I bought the latest iWork for a number of reasons, one of them being the animation abilities in keynote. I had in mind a method to create *custom* Ken Burns Effects, among other things for slide shows I could give to clients and use myself to play on an HDTV. Just think, you can have you image fade scaled to exact place you want and then pan across, scaling in or out to show off your work and direct the eye exactly how you want it.
However, this is not possible. In the previous version of Keynote, you can stack builds within a slide to occur when the previous one finishes, after X amount of seconds, or *with* the current build. Now this last option isn't available (it's still listed, but greyed out). It would seem like a simple fix, but as of yet, no change from Apple.
Anyone else currently disappointed?
I prefer to simply export the images that I need for mailing or for use in other programs rather then to generate some previews just for that. it gives much more control and works fine for me..
The integration is great, especially if you have worked with Microsoft Powerpoint! But, if your images are stacked - only the top pick will appear, so it is advisable to open stacks in Aperture first before thinking about importing to Keynote - or to for example iWeb.
Hi Daniel,
Keynote 4.0.3 still does what you describe - at least I think I know what you want, however you have to click on the picture rather than the slide and hit in the inspector window the more option tab to adjust e.g. automatically after x seconds of build 1, 2 ,3 etc.
For the type of thing you describe I'd rather use iMovie and safe it to a DVD - like this you can also showcase your animated slideshow at a friends house on a standalone DVD player.
The method needed for the effect I described requires the "with build X" option. Spacing effects with negative seconds doesn't seem to work, neither does attempting to do this with separate slides.
Yeah, iMovie will fit the bill, but it doesn't let you make CUSTOM slideshows. We're talking about perfectionism and particularity here. Templates do a fair job, but when the slide show becomes more than a gimmick, then control becomes a priority.
So now for some speculation: do you think this is a hardware limitation- having a animated path happen along with an effect- that prompted Apple engineers to remove this function? Or perhaps they thought it was a useless feature? Something else?
Also, keynote definitely can export to a number of video and web formats, so handing something like this off is a piece of cake.
Can the Aperture Captions be imported and shown in Keynote?