How to make your own slide shows of high-quality images

Both ACDSee and Irfan View create great slide shows. But Mac and Linux users (and Windows users who'd like to try an alternative program) should try Compupic.

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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

How to make your own slide shows of high-quality images

Nov. 22, 2000

By Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©2000, Al Fasoldt
Copyright ©2000, The Syracuse Newspapers

   You've got a computer with enough storage space to hold Toledo and you have a fancy color monitor that makes a TV screen green with envy. So what do you show on it while you're busy doing other things? A wimpy screen saver?
   Get real! Why not show your own collection of digital images in a slide show? That's what I do. I have hundreds of my own images -- pictures I took of the grandchildren at the zoo, photos of our trip along the Amazon, that kind of thing -- along with thousands of images I've collected from Internet sources over the years. I'm just a click-click away from a slide show using my favorite image viewer, ACDSee, on my Windows 2000 PC, or using the wonderfully designed Compupic software on my Linux PC. (There are versions of Compupic for Windows and Macs, too.)
   I'm too lazy to keep saving all my new images to CD using my CD recorder, so I store most of the recent ones in a few folders on one of my hard drives. Since all our computers at home are networked, any of our PCs can run a slide show of images stored on any other PC's drives. Or we can run slide shows off CDs, too, of course. I have some favorite CDs that contain hundreds of fractal images on each one.
   My latest find -- dozens of spectacular new planetary photos from NASA -- helped make my collection of space images pretty impressive. And I enjoy dropping into Philip Greenspun's Web project now and then for a look at his collections of photos, too. They're ideal for slide shows if you have a high-resolution display and enjoy travel photography.
   Sound good? I'll tell you how to do the same thing and where to go on the Web to locate these photos and others.
   You can make slide shows (full-screen displays of images, shown one at a time) using two different methods. What I prefer is a good image viewer with built-in slide-show capabilities. That describes ACDSee perfectly if you're a Windows user, or perhaps Irfan View if you're a really cheap Windows user. (You can try ACDSee for free, but you should pay if you keep it. Irfan View is free to try and free to keep.)
   The other method uses an actual screen saver that shows images in a slide show, as opposed to an image editor that also does a slide show. I've been disappointed in all the screen savers that do slide shows, so I'm not recommending any. If you know of a good one -- and that means one that can show ANY kind of image, not just its own proprietary format -- let me know.
   Use the Google search engine for the best download site for ACDSee or Irfan View. (Type the name of the program and the word "download," without quotes, for a site list. Google is at www.google.com.
   Both ACDSee and Irfan View create great slide shows. But Mac and Linux users (and Windows users who'd like to try an alternative program) should try Compupic. It's also good for slide shows. Go to www.photodex.com/.
   If you have a lot of your own images, you're all set. Just install the image viewer and go to it. But if you don't have many good digital images, you're in luck if you have an Internet connection. You can find them practically everywhere.
   This week I'll tell you about two Web sites that have superb images. Next week I'll tell you where to find thousands more a different way.
   Both sites I'm describing here have two kinds of photos. Don't assume that the ones you see are the ones you should download. In most cases you'll find a separate link to a large version of each image. Unless you have a small screen running at low resolution (less than 800 by 600 pixels), get the image that has the higher resolution.
   First, the site I call photo heaven: www.photo.net, run by photographer Philip Greenspun and colleagues. It hosts all of Greenspun's photo essays and has a nearly limitless collection of photos from others. Greenspun is especially careful to edit his digital photos so they have proper gamma, so be sure to download a few of his pictures to use to set up your display. (Gamma describes how gray and medium-tone colors are reproduced in comparison to light and dark tones. Alas, most computer monitors are misadjusted, so please read what I've written about this problem (at www.twcny.rr.com/technofile/texts/tec122798.html) and tweak your display as soon as you can.
   One of my favorite Greenspun photos is also my champion gamma-test image. Download his photo of rowboats at Cape Cod to see what I mean. The small version is at www.photo.net/photo/pcd0728/rowboats-91; the large version is at www.photo.net/photo/pcd0728/rowboats-91.4.jpg. (There's also a link from the small version to the large one.)
   The NASA site I was visiting is at www.visibleearth.nasa.gov/. Look around and spend some time reading the descriptions of the photos. Navigating the NASA site might take a few hours, but you'll find it all worthwhile -- especially since you've already paid for these photos with your tax dollars.
   Next: Where to get more photos than you can possibly store -- without paying a cent.