John,

I am sorry but I cannot explain any more than I described other than to say I did it all manually (as I have done with previous programs).  As soon as I added in the transition mode the picture viewing time REDUCED - one would think that would have tended to INCREASE.

However, in saying all this I have since used the Slideshow Wizard and I am getting closer to what I want to achieve. Where I was something like 10% happy, I am now 99% happy.  I am still trying to score it 100%.

Thanks for your response.

Ron

Hi Ron,

Given what you said, that you did it manually, you added 80 images at 7s per image = 9m20s.

Then you applied a 2s transition to each. Go to timeline mode and zoom in on the first few images by reducing the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen.or by using the slider at the upper right of the arranger area. Look at the first image. It is 7s but the transition to slide 2 starts after 5s. How this works is that slide 2 is slid 2s to the left to overlap the first slide. Look at the right of slide 2. The transition to slide 3 starts at 10s. Thus you lose 2s per slide because they overlap to make the transition. As well you slide is on the screen about 3s between the end of the fadein and the beginning of the fadeout. Your total time goes from 9m20s to a theoreticl 6m40s.

If your setup is for NTSC at 29.97fps, you won't get exactly 5s plus a 2s overlap because everything is calculated in frames. After inputting a time of 2s for a transition, check back to see the length. It probably says 1s 29 frames. The main length of 5s will also be modified to handle frames. Normally you would think that it would be exactly 149.85 frames at 29.97fps x 5s. But it may cut this to 149 frames. By the time it's finished, the total length will not be something easily calculable, so let the program do it.

For 80 images that were originally theoritically 7s, with a theoretical 2s transition, meaning effectively 5s, less the dropped fractions of frames, and in my case I ended up with 5m52s and about 10 frames for 80 images. Note that the first and last images don't have a second transition, so in the case of the first image, the transition starts after 5s (images is fully on the screen for 5s).

Thus what you have to do is set up the timeline first, then add in the music to fit the time indicated at the bottom or the end of the timeline.

You did it the other way round. You added your pictures, added music the same length, then shortened the overall length by overlapping the pictures, effectively reducing the movie length.