Finding the optimal project setting

[seethoff]

I am using Premier Elements 2018 to create a slide show with photos & a few videos. I have down-rezzed the photos to 1000 x 700 (per Grisetti's recommendation in his book).

When I add a few photos to the timeline, they all have letterboxes and the orange bar at the top. Letterbox & orange bar are signs of trouble.

Can anyone suggest a path forward?

Should I proceed & not anticipate problems? Maybe rendering will fix everything.

Would it be good practice to manually set project preferences for this type of slideshow project?

If yes what should the preferences be? Are there settings for photos? Everything I see if for video.

...Pat

[Bill Sprague]

When I do slideshows I never resize anything of any format.   I set the project by sliding image files onto the timeline.  It works.  At output I match the screen I want to view on.  Premiere Elements is very adaptable to unsized still images. 

Letterboxing can be a function of the wrong choice in the checkbox "Default Scale to Frame Size" in Edit > Preferences > General. 

When Grisetti posts here he usually says to resize to something a little larger than the intended project.  1000 x 700 is too small for anything we now use to watch slideshows on.  Again, I see no reason to resize, but if you do make it larger than the project you want and maintain the aspect ratio.  For current HD TVs, anything smaller than 1920x1080 is too small.