A bash script that creates professional MP4 slideshows from a folder of images using FFmpeg.

• ✅ Supports multiple image formats (PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, HEIC, HEIF)
• ✅ Configurable photo duration (default: 5 seconds)
• ✅ Automatic resolution normalization to web-friendly 1920x1080
• ✅ Ken Burns effect with randomized pan/zoom directions for cinematic motion
• ✅ Blurred backgrounds using dominant colors from each image (no more black bars!)
• ✅ Date overlays - Automatically extracts and displays photo dates from EXIF metadata
• ✅ Title slide - Add a custom title screen at the beginning of your slideshow
• ✅ Image sorting - Sort by filename, EXIF date taken, or file creation date
• ✅ Background music - Add one or more MP3 files with auto-calculated photo timing
• ✅ Multiple transition effects: fade, wipe, slide, or random
• ✅ Proper portrait/landscape handling with auto-orientation
• ✅ Parallel image processing for faster performance (4x speedup with GNU Parallel)
• ✅ Temporary file management for optimized processing
• ✅ MP4 output format

• FFmpeg: Core video processing engine

  sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

• ImageMagick: Better image preprocessing

  sudo apt-get install imagemagick

• ExifTool: For date metadata extraction and overlay

  sudo apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl

• GNU Parallel: For parallel image processing (4x faster)

  sudo apt-get install parallel

1. Clone or download this repository
2. Make the script executable (already done):

   chmod +x create_slideshow.sh

./create_slideshow.sh -s /path/to/photos

./create_slideshow.sh -s SOURCE_FOLDER [OPTIONS]

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./vacation_photos

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./wedding_photos -d 7 -t random -k

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos -d 3 -t fade -o my_slideshow.mp4

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos --title "Our Family Vacation 2025"

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos --sort date

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos -m song1.mp3 -m song2.mp3 -t random

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos -r 1280x720

• fade: Smooth fade between images
• wipe: Left-to-right wipe transition
• slide: Sliding transition effect
• random: Randomly select from fade, wipe, and slide for each transition

The Ken Burns effect adds cinematic motion to still images by slowly panning and zooming. Each image gets a random direction (left, right, up, or down) with a smooth zoom for varied, professional-looking motion. Enable with the -k flag:

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos -k

Features:

• Random pan direction for each image (left/right/up/down)
• Smooth zoom from 1.0x to 1.1-1.2x
• Optimized for performance with simplified algorithm
• Automatic use of "faster" encoding preset

Instead of black letterbox/pillarbox bars, the script creates a blurred, color-matched background from each image:

• Background is a blurred, zoomed version of the image
• Uses dominant colors from the photo
• Sharp image centered on top
• Professional Instagram/social media style
• Automatically applied to all portrait and non-16:9 images

Add a custom title slide at the beginning of your slideshow with the --title option. The title appears as white text centered on a black background.

Features:

• Simple, elegant black background with white text
• Centered 72-point font
• Same duration as your photo duration setting
• Transitions smoothly into your first photo

Example:

./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos --title "Summer Vacation 2025" -d 5

The title slide will be shown for 5 seconds before transitioning to the first photo.

Add background music to your slideshow with automatic timing! The script automatically calculates photo duration to perfectly match your music length.

Features:

• Multiple files: Add one or more MP3 files using -m flag multiple times
• Auto-timing: Photo duration is automatically calculated to match total music length
• Smart concatenation: Multiple songs are joined with 2-second silence between them
• Perfect sync: Video length matches music length exactly (with -shortest flag)

How it works:

Total duration = Music1 + 2sec + Music2 + 2sec + Music3...
Photo duration = Total duration / Number of images

Examples:

# Single music file
./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos -m background_music.mp3

# Multiple music files (automatically concatenated)
./create_slideshow.sh -s ./wedding_photos -m ceremony.mp3 -m reception.mp3 -m dance.mp3

# Music with title slide and sorting
./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos --title "Our Journey" --sort date -m soundtrack.mp3 -t random

Note: When music is provided, the -d duration parameter is ignored as timing is auto-calculated.

Control the order of images in your slideshow with the --sort option:

Sort Options:

• filename (default): Alphabetical order by filename
• date: Chronological order by EXIF date taken (DateTimeOriginal or CreateDate)
• created: Chronological order by file creation/modification time

Features:

• date mode: Extracts EXIF metadata (requires exiftool), falls back to file time if no EXIF data
• created mode: Uses file system creation/modification timestamp
• All modes sort in ascending order (oldest to newest, A to Z)

Examples:

# Sort by date taken from EXIF metadata
./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos --sort date

# Sort by file creation time
./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos --sort created

# Default alphabetical sorting (no --sort needed)
./create_slideshow.sh -s ./photos

Perfect for chronological vacation slideshows or organizing photos by their actual capture date!

Photos with EXIF metadata automatically get a date overlay in the lower right corner:

• Extracts date from DateTimeOriginal or CreateDate EXIF tags
• Formatted as: "Monday, January 1, 2020"
• Displayed on a semi-transparent dark gradient background
• White text for excellent readability
• Only shown when date metadata is available
• Requires exiftool (install: sudo apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl)

• Output Format: MP4 (H.264 codec)
• Default Resolution: 1920x1080 (Full HD)
• Frame Rate: 25 fps
• Transition Duration: 1 second (hardcoded)
• Image Processing:
  • Auto-orientation applied to fix rotated images
  • Portrait/landscape detection with blurred color-matched backgrounds
  • Parallel processing with GNU Parallel (4 concurrent jobs)
  • Images preprocessed to PNG for consistent processing
• Ken Burns: Uses zoompan filter with trim for precise duration control
• Encoding:
  • Default preset: "medium" for quality
  • Ken Burns preset: "faster" for performance
  • CRF 23 for balanced quality/size
• Temporary Files: Automatically cleaned up after processing

• Ensure your source folder contains supported image formats
• Check that the path is correct

• Make sure FFmpeg is installed: ffmpeg -version
• Update FFmpeg to the latest version if you encounter filter issues

• The script will work without ImageMagick but with slightly reduced image quality
• Install ImageMagick for best results

• Reduce the resolution with -r 1280x720
• Process fewer images at a time

1. Use lower resolution for faster processing: -r 1280x720
2. Disable Ken Burns effect if not needed (it's more CPU intensive)
3. Install GNU Parallel for faster image processing: sudo apt-get install parallel
4. Preprocess images to similar sizes before running the script
5. The script automatically converts high-res images to web resolution for efficiency
6. Ken Burns effect uses a simplified algorithm and faster encoding preset for better performance

If GNU Parallel is installed, the script will automatically process images concurrently (4 at a time), significantly speeding up the preprocessing phase:

sudo apt-get install parallel

# Create a test folder with some images
mkdir test_photos
cp ~/Pictures/*.jpg test_photos/

# Create a basic slideshow (no Ken Burns, fade transitions)
./create_slideshow.sh -s test_photos

# Create a professional slideshow with all features
./create_slideshow.sh -s test_photos \
  -d 6 \
  -t random \
  -k \
  -o my_awesome_slideshow.mp4

What you get:

• 6 seconds per photo
• Random transitions (fade/wipe/slide)
• Ken Burns effect with varied pan directions
• Blurred backgrounds for portrait images
• Professional, polished output

• v1.7 - Background music support with auto-calculated photo timing
• v1.6 - Image sorting by filename, EXIF date taken, or file creation date
• v1.5 - Title slide feature with custom text on black background
• v1.4 - Automatic date overlays from EXIF metadata with gradient backgrounds
• v1.3 - Blurred color-matched backgrounds instead of black bars
• v1.2 - Randomized Ken Burns pan directions (left/right/up/down)
• v1.1 - Performance optimizations with GNU Parallel support
• v1.0 - Initial release with transitions and Ken Burns effect

Free to use and modify.

Feel free to submit issues and enhancement requests!