By default, SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom uses the content housed in your Lightroom Library when publishing a slideshow. You can export your entire Library, or use any of the Library's organizing principles, including "Folders," "Collections," Keyword Tags" or "Metadata." Regardless of which grouping you select/view in the Library, the images associated with that group are displayed in the FIlmstrip at the bottom of Lightroom (see below). The Filmstrip is important, for it is the element that controls which images are loaded/exported when using SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom.
The first step when using SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom is to decide which content you want to use from your Library. Click on "Library" in the top navigation, then either select a preexisting content group, create a new collection with the images you'd like to use, or shift-click on images in your Library to manually select. When complete click on the "Web" link at the top, then open the "Gallery" panel at the top-right. Choose "SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom" from the drop-down. SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom will initialize with your chosen content.
The overall size and appearance of SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom dictates how much or little of your exported images can be viewed. To see more of your photos, make SlideShowPro larger (through DIMENSIONS/SlideShowPro Width and DIMENSIONS/SlideShowPro Height, and to see less do the inverse. Changing the size of SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom however does not change the exported size of your images. We do that in the next step.
Regardless of how large or small SlideShowPro's width and height is set, you can independently control the exported width and height of your slideshow content. If your content is exported at a size smaller than SlideShowPro, they will float in the middle of the Content Area. If larger, SlideShowPro will forcibly scale the content so that they fit the Content Area.
For this reason, the "golden rule" for optimum image quality and file size is to manipulate IMAGES/Large Width and IMAGES/Large Height until your slideshow content fills the Content Area, but without going overboard by producing unecessarily file sizes or forced scaling. Simply reduce the value of these parameters until your slideshow content is smaller than the Content Area, then increment a little bit at a time until it fills the space. When additional increments don't change its appearance, you're at an optimized size.
Lightroom exports an extra set of images for all thumbnails displayed in your slideshow. These images are used for the pop-up link previews and thumbnail navigation links. Because these images are used in both places, you should always set IMAGES/Thumb Width and IMAGES/Thumb Height to a larger dimension than the containers they fill. The reason? Images always look better when downscaled rather than upscaled, which can distort and pixelate images.
So to choose a thumbnail export size (and if you have modified the appearance of SlideShowPro Player for Lightroom), note which is larger: NAVIGATION/Preview Width and NAVIGATION/Preview Height or NAVIGATION/Thumb Link Width and NAVIGATION/Thumb Link Height. Then, make sure IMAGES/Thumb Width and IMAGES/Thumb Height is at least the same size as the largest dimension for optimum photo quality.
By default, your slideshow content will be automatically linked to higher resolution duplicates of themselves that are loaded in separate browser windows when clicked. This feature can be turned off through POPUP/Use Popups, but if you keep them in your slideshow you can control the popup image size through the IMAGES/Popup Width and IMAGES/Popup Height sliders. They're set by default to sizes optimized for 1024 displays.
By default, your slideshow load an alternate (larger) set of content when in full screen mode. This feature can be turned off through OPTIONS/Full Screen Reformat, but if you keep them in your slideshow you can control the full screen image size through the IMAGES/Full Screen Width and IMAGES/Full Screen Height sliders. They're set by default to sizes optimized for 1024 displays.
When you're ready to view your slideshow outside of Lightroom, either click on the "Preview in Browser" button at the bottom of the Work Area, or click on the "Export..." button at the bottom of the Template Edit Panels. Either option does the same thing, except "Preview..." creates temporary versions of your content for viewing in a browser, while "Export..." creates a physical folder for you to use online. You can also select the "Upload..." button if you've setup a site's FTP information in Lightroom to upload directly to your web server.
When publishing all your images, Lightroom takes your original images and exports web-optimized duplicates using the JPG quality assigned in the IMAGES/Quality slider, plus any additional filters or "Develop" modifications made in the Library.