Home > Applications >
Photo Slideshows

This comparison has been updated for Windows Vista and moved to our new website Mac vs. Windows

Overview

Slideshows are a special method of viewing a series of images one after the other automatically. Both Mac OS X and Windows XP offer built-in slideshow capabilities. You can select images from within the file system and view them as a slideshow ("On-the-fly slideshows"), create a slideshow to save and distribute to others ("Saved Slideshows"), or setup a screensaver that is a slideshow of images within a selected folder complete with transition effects. Of course, XP offers more transition effects between pictures than OS X does.

On-the-fly Slideshows

Mac OS X

On-the-fly slideshows can be created from the contents of an email, an arbitrary selection of images within a search result, any number of images opened in Preview, or an arbitrary selection of images in the file system.

Control-click or right-click on a selection of images in the file system and choose Slideshow. The following controls are available: forward, backward, play, index sheet, fit to screen/actual size (toggle) and exit. OS X's onscreen controls appear in a translucent console, and images smoothly scale down and tile when you toggle Index Sheet. This can be seen in action in Apple's Spotlight movie.

Spotlight search results have a slideshow button for selected images.

Email messages containing images have a slideshow button.

Windows XP

On-the-fly slideshows can be created from the contents of a folder (either directly in the file system or in an open/save dialog).

  1. Right-click on an image or multiple images in Windows Explorer (or an open/save dialog) and choose Preview. This will launch Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.

  2. Click the Start Slide Show button, or press F11.

    3. The slide show will start, and cycle through all the pictures in the same folder as the picture you selected. (The whole screen will be black with the pictures centered. Animated GIF files will play).

    A small toolbar will show briefly near the upper right of the screen, containing buttons for: Start Slide Show, Pause Slide Show, Previous Picture, Next Picture, and Close This Window. Mousing in that area will show the toolbar again after it disappears. Pictures display for about 5 seconds each.

  3. Right-clicking on an image while in a slideshow will bring up a contextual menu of actions, namely "Edit," "Print," "Rotate," and "Set as Desktop Background."

During a running slideshow, you can use alt-tab to switch to the Desktop, select some pictures, and drop them into the slideshow.

If XP recognizes a folder as a folder of images, it will display a View Slideshow task button in the Tasks pane.

Saving Slideshows

Mac OS X

  • An Automator action called "New QuickTime Slideshow" will take a folder of images and create a QuickTime slideshow out of them. Images must be the same size, sequentially named, and no larger than 640x480
  • Image Capture contains a slideshow post-processing action (see Photo Management)
  • iMovie is capable of creating slideshows with photos, audio, video, and text

Windows XP

Windows Movie Maker is capable of creating a slideshow that contains not only photos, but audio, video, and text as well.

  • Photo Story 3 (not part of Windows XP) lets you overlay text and audio narration on top of your slideshow.
  • Microsoft offers an HTML slideshow PowerToy for free download (not part of Windows XP)

Conclusion

OS X has no way of starting a slideshow from within an open/save dialog like you can with XP. On the other hand, you can view a slideshow of email image attachments via the "slideshow" button at the top of an email message in Mail, a feature that Outlook Express lacks. Apple's iMovie has slideshow features on par with that of Windows Movie Maker, but it is not part of OS X.

Mac OS X: 5
Windows XP: 5 (7)

Thanks to Iain for help with this section.

Back Photo Management | Next Web Browsing