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20 Dec 2007
iPhoto story line support
The first application to look at, is the image/photo management application by Apple. The selection of suitable photos can be done in two ways. First the user can create a hand-picked photo album. Then the user has drag&drop each (or set of) photo onto the album icon. Secondly can create a smart album and define a rule to have photos added to that album. Such a rule can be based on the existence of a certain keyword. Drawback is that the user has to assign that keyword to each photo that needs to be included. Unfortunately there is no way to set keywords to multiple photos'.
Next the user must think about the order of the photos. In a smart album the user can not fiddle with the order of the photos. In a normal album he can. What can be done depends on the format. This implies that a smart album is no use in creating story lines.
The slideshow format is the premier way of viewing photos in iPhoto. Each photo will be shown sequentially in full screen mode. Optionally the photo title can be shown as context. It is possible to randomise the presentation on photos. An underlying audio track can be added for additional context or just atmosphere. Due to a lack of context, the slideshow does not provide much story line possibilities. A slideshow can be based on selected items in a normal and smart album. The slideshow options allows for changing the order of the photos. There are many possibilities to adapt the presentation of and transitions between photos in the show itself.
The book format within iPhoto allows the user to create a classic photo album. This looks very much like a classic photo album. How much context one can add depends on the album theme. Not all page layouts offer the possibility to add text. Unfortunately the information entered for each photo can not be used as context for the album pages.
iPhoto also has the possibility to create a calendar. This format is a pretty standard monthly flip over calendar, with on one page the monthly calendar and on the other page 1-3 photos. It does not seem possible to add context through text in all themes. however the monthly calendar does add some context. This monthly calendar can be filled through events from iCal (nice for birthdays).
There also exists a Web Gallery format, where a set of images are exported to the web. Unfortunately that requires a .Mac account, which I do not have at the moment.
iPhoto also has the possibility to export to other applications, such as iDVD and iWeb. The story line creation must be done in those applications.