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I have a bunch of pictures I'd like to make into a basic slideshow, as a video (e.g. mpeg/avi). What software is available to do this?

I started using PiTiVi based on recommendation in another question, which seemed nice at first. However, it's very unstable - just crashed my whole system! Regardless, it won't let me do anything over 10 seconds because the timeline keeps jumping back to the start any time I try and move/resize a clip.

All I need is to fade between some images. Anything out there?

4 Answers 4

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You can try imagination from the repository.

sudo apt-get install imagination

Imagination is a lightweight and user-friendly DVD slide show maker with a clean interface and few dependencies. It only requires the ffmpeg encoder to produce a movie to be burned with another application.

It currently features over 50 transition effects. Exporting the slideshow in FLV format is supported as well.

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  • Gave it a try. It seems to have every wipe transition under the sun, except for the ubiquitous star-wipe ;) Nonetheless, it does exactly what I want - thanks! Jan 17, 2011 at 13:27
  • 2
    It's a pity that this program does not support HD resolutions out of the box. It seems to work OK overall except for this detail. Oct 27, 2014 at 16:26
  • I couldn't get this to stop squishing my images to weird aspect ratios (maybe it's better for DVD's)
    – unhammer
    Feb 20, 2018 at 20:41
  • To stop squashing the pictures.. do not choose rescale in properties (maybe reload pics too) and choose new tv format instead of pal. Everything else crashed for me.. this works v20.04 .. also chose the format not vob. They need to update the default settings for modern times. Nov 21, 2020 at 7:14
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kdenlive works for me. You can install it from repo (sudo apt-get install kdenlive), but you can compile more codecs in with ffmpeg from source and kdenlive from source.

It looks a bit intimidating, but you don't need to know much to make a slideshow with it. First, put all the photos you want in a folder, then do Project → Add Slideshow Clip

adding slideshows

and select that folder (there are some options for transitions and such there too).

Then, drag that clip down onto the timeline, e.g. to "Video 1", and click Render, pick a file name and format and Render to file.

If you also want music, do Project→Add Clip and pick a song and then drag it down to the timeline. Right click the audio clip at the end of the slideshow clip and Cut clip so you don't get audio after the slideshow is done. Then Render.

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  • 3
    Out of all the answers on this page, Kdenlive is the only project still developing. Jun 14, 2016 at 19:04
  • I'm not able to export the file for some reason, weird.
    – Heisenberg
    Apr 3, 2021 at 16:19
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I for one really like Videoporama. The latest version comes with many effects, allows you to insert videos (or only parts of a video) too as well as audio (and edit audio).

Another similar tool is PhotoFilmStrip. It uses the "Ken Burns" effect for the pictures transitions and you can also add music and captions to your photos.

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  • 4
    Videoporama is no longer maintained - check out ffDiaporama, which is still maintained and has more features. Sep 11, 2016 at 6:15
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ffmpeg -f image2 -i image%d.jpg video.mpg

This command will transform all the images from the current directory (named image1.jpg, image2.jpg, etc…) to a video file named video.mpg.

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    He said, he also wanted to have some fade effects.
    – Anwar
    Jul 16, 2012 at 17:26
  • ffmpeg -f image2 -i image1.jpg image2.png video.mpg not works.
    – alhelal
    Nov 23, 2018 at 12:46

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