Autorun CD

Creating a Autorun Photo Slideshow CD

Digital photography is taking over the market. Instead of putting pictures in an album, they are now copied onto a CD or DVD for viewing on a computer screen.

New HDTV televisions have PC connections and high resolution, are fantastically sharp with great color saturation and are opening up a whole new world when it comes to presenting slideshows on 50-inch flat-screen TVs. Slide screens are a thing of the past. Now it's all about large flat-screen TVs that can display colors in a far more exciting way than was ever possible on the old wall-mounted screens. While the old slide magazines used to take up space in entire cupboards, up to 5,000 slides can now be conveniently saved on CDs and DVDs.

Just like all other CD presentations, the best way of starting a photo slideshow is with the automatic autorun function. Just insert the CD into the drive, sit back and enjoy.

The market is full to brimming with slideshow programs that are cheaper than the cost of a bulb for one of the old projectors. Go to a shareware website and do a search for "slideshow", "photo slideshow", "photo presentations" and "graphic viewer" and you will be surprised by the number of software products currently available.

As an example, we will now be taking a look at the slideshow creation program called PicturePlayer and the features that it boasts.

PicturePlayer has been designed for you to organize, sort, compare and easily create a sound-supported slideshow for your digital pictures. You can also select a background sound and/or add a sound-file for each picture individually.

PicturePlayer also lets you allocate a text passage to each and every picture if you so wish. These can be displayed in a separate window or in a window area of the slideshow player.

The ShowCreator features a "light-box function" that makes it easy to sort and organize your digital pictures. This program can also be used to create and configure your slideshow. This part of the program is also used to allocate the sound files and text snippets to the pictures.

Slideshow with a separate text area within the player window

PicturePlayer comes with 8 ready-to-use player designs for you to choose from, each with or without a text area. It also comes with the "Skin Compiler", which has been designed to let you create your own player design with your own buttons. This means that you can also make your picture presentations match your corporate identity.

Layout 1

Layout 1

Layout 1

Layout 1: Slideshow player without internal text area
Layout 2: Slideshow player with internal text area below the picture
Layout 3: Slideshow player with an internal, text area at the side

Test "PicturePlayer" slideshow software for free

You will find a free PicturePlayer trail version and more information about the program at the PicturePlayer website: » PicturePlayer...

Interested?

If you would like to give PicturePlayer a try, you will find step-by-step instructions for a small demo project here. It will take you less than 15 minutes.

All you have to do is download the PicturePlayer trial version and install the program by double clicking on the download file.

PicturePlayer download

Creating a digital photo slideshow with PicturePlayer

Preparation
Create or select a folder in which you would like your slideshow to be created and copy all of your images into this folder.

Go to the Windows start menu and select "Programs - PciturePlayer - ShowCreator". ShowCreator will start. An Explorer window is located in the top left hand side of the ShowCreator window. Use the Explorer window to search for the folder that you have just created for your slideshow and click on it. A thumbnail picture of each of your images will now be displayed. Now go to the menu bar and select: "File - Create new show..." and confirm "Create new show in current folder" by clicking on "Ok". An assistant will now be started, which will take you step-by-step through the slideshow creation process. In the "settings" window check the option marked "Use the PicturePlayer presets" and click on "Next >". On the "Save" page select the "Create slideshow for a CD" option and click on "Next >". Now click on "Save changes". Your slideshow is now saved and started for testing. When the test is completed, close the slideshow player.

This setting creates a "Autorun.inf" file automatically and saves it in the show folder. This file is created so that your slideshow will be started automatically once it is inserted into a disc drive.

Specifying the order in which the pictures are displayed

Sorting images automatically
Right click in the main window of the ShowCreator and select the following from the pop-up menu: "Sort images...". Now you can sort the images according to date (usually the date the picture was taken) or according to the name of the image.

Sorting images by hand
Left click on the thumbnail of the image you would like to move in the main window of the ShowCreators; the image is highlighted. Left click on the thumbnail of the image again and drag it into its correct position.

Adding sound to the slideshow

Left double click on the thumbnail of the image you would like to edit in the main window of the ShowCreator. A dialog window opens in which you can specify a text passage for your image and allocate a sound file.

Copying the slideshow onto a CD

Start your CD copying software and follow the steps you would normally take for burning a CD. Drag the contents of the folder that you have created for your show into the main window of your burning software. Make sure that the "Autorun.inf", "Show.ini" and "PicturePlayer.exe" files are all contained in the root directory of the CD when it is finished. Without these files, the autostart function of your slideshow will not work.

Test "PicturePlayer" slideshow software for free

You will find a free PicturePlayer trail version and more information about the program at the PicturePlayer website: » PicturePlayer...

Glossary

Photo slideshow
Slideshow simply means a digital slideshow. The slideshow is located on the hard drive, a CD or DVD in electronic form and is displayed on a PC monitor. The latest HDTV televisions with high-resolution LCD or plasma screens come complete with a PC connection, which allow your pictures to be displayed on a TV screen.