When you think of photography, YouTube probably isn’t the first website that comes to mind. But by using the slideshow export feature of Aperture 3 you can show off your work in an entirely new way on the site. Chris Folsom explains.

Step 1 – Create a slideshow

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Click File, New and then click on Slideshow. You’ll be prompted to name your slideshow and pick the transition effect. Click the “Choose Theme” button and you’ll be able to add photos to the newly created project… just drag them in and rearrange them in the order you want.

The slideshow settings will allow you to change things like the Aspect Ratio of the presentation, how long slides will be displayed and whether or not you want the title shown. All of these settings can be applied to individual slides or the entire slideshow, so you can customize the presentation to a pretty granular level.

Step 2 – Add a soundtrack

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Adding music can enhance your photos by influencing the mood of the viewer. But, much like photos, copyright prevents you from using most of the commercial tracks you have sitting on your hard drive. Thankfully, there are many sources of music available licensed under Creative Commons (remember that?). The “Legal Music For Videos” page on the official Creative Commons site is a good place to start.

Do some searching, find some music that fits your slideshow and import it into Aperture by dragging the audio track into your slideshow project. Once it is in Aperture, it will show up under the Library option in the music settings (which can be found by clicking the little musical note icon on the right side of the screen). Drag the song you imported down to where your photos are and it will now play in the background during the presentation.

Step 3 – Export and upload

Once you have your photos arranged in the order you want and have the music added, click the Export button in the upper-right area of the window. You will be presented with a dialog where you can name the file, choose where it is saved to and pick the format. Choose the “MobileMe, Youtube” option and click the Export button. Once the slideshow is done converting, it is ready to export to YouTube!

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Here is an example recent slideshow I created in Aperture 3 and uploaded to YouTube:

These slideshows can be embedded on your own site or emailed to clients and are another way to get your photos seen by a whole new audience.

Chris Folsom is a photographer based in Baltimore, MD. You can view more of his photos at Flickr or follow his photographic endeavors on Twitter.

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