Using SlideShowPro for online portfolios

SlideShowPro is a photo and video sideshow player that can be embedded at any web site. SlideShowPro is distributed as a component for the Flash authoring application, as a web gallery extension for Adobe Lightroom, and in standalone form for embedding / customizing without the need for a third party application.

I have recently used this software to create an online website portfolio for a wonderful painting contractor, Wine Country Painters. I was really impressed with it’s flexibility, and with the simple addition of a Photoshop script, how easy it was to produce a professional on-line presentation.

You must understand the Flash interface to use this software. It is added as a component in the Flash program. Once you have installed the extension in flash, you can speed up the process of creating your photo image and thumbnail content by downloading the Photoshop script. Follow the instructions to place this script in your Photoshop presets/scripts folder. I found the on-line training to be generally good, except for the Photoshop script which came with little or no instructions. If you get the script- You Do Not have to create the folders (or the xml file) in the SSP Quick Start instructions, the script creates them for you!

To produce the slide show- Create a root folder for it, perhaps in the local directory of the website you are going to use it on. Collect your images in Photoshop in the order that you would like them to display. You don’t have to size them. Go to: File/Scripts/SSP Export Images. Click on it and you will be prompted to fill in a series of options. Put in the location of your folder, and the size of your images and thumbnails. Click when your done and watch the magic happen!

Next you will create a FLA in Flash and save it to the Slide Show root folder. When you drag the component to the stage, customize and publish, the images will all be there.