The room screen, from a second address with a token in it
A slideshow runs off its own address, oldest first, with no controls on screen and a pace you set before the guests arrive. Twelve looks, three timings, and four keys for whoever ends up at the laptop.
The room screen is the part of this that stops an evening feeling like everybody staring at their own phone. Photographs a guest took twenty minutes ago, of a moment the rest of the room was inside, appear on the wall while people are still talking about it — and the guests who have not sent anything yet see what sending looks like.
It has its own address
The slideshow is not the gallery on a bigger screen. It is a second address, ending in a token, issued when the collection opens, so nobody can guess it from the guest link. That separation is the point: the person running the projector can be handed the screen address without being handed the settings, and a host can keep the gallery closed to guests while the wall keeps playing.
Open it on whatever is feeding the projector — a laptop, a mini PC, a television browser — and put it in full screen. F11 on Windows, Control-Command-F on a Mac. Nothing else is required on the machine: no software to install, no account to sign into on the venue's network.
- The order
- Oldest first — the order the photographs arrived, which reads as the evening in sequence. Or shuffled once when the screen starts, for a room that has already seen the first hour.
- The files
- Everything in the collection that the host has kept, with no controls on screen, no captions you did not ask for, and no guest names unless the host allows them.
- New arrivals
- Either they join without a refresh, which is the mode for a live room, or only when the screen is reopened, which is the mode for a slideshow that must not change in front of a couple walking back down the aisle.
Twelve looks, chosen in a minute
A look arranges the photographs. It does not decide the pace, the order or the names — those stay on the settings tab, which is why the same look can be a slow wedding screening or a fast party one. All twelve stand on a light ground now: the product's own white, blush and lilac, so the wall matches a marquee in daylight and a hotel ballroom with the lights up.
Cinematic Film
The screening: a wide 2.39:1 frame under fine grain, on warm chalk, drifting slowly and dissolving into the next. The one to choose when the room is watching rather than eating.
Editorial Magazine
The magazine spread: a matted, hairline-framed plate on a pale page, caption and page number set beside it. Reads as something printed rather than something projected.
Polaroid Memories
Instant prints scattered on linen, the current one picked up, straightened and held, whoever sent it written under it. The most domestic of the twelve, and the one that suits a birthday on a living-room television.
Immersive Gallery
One framed work on a daylit wall under a ceiling light, with a plaque beneath it. The most formal of the set, and the one that holds up best on a large screen in a bright room.
Dynamic Mosaic
The living wall — the current photograph large with four recent ones tiled beside it, all of them changing as the set moves on. Better for an arrival loop than during dinner, when the room cannot read a grid.
Minimalist Motion
Near-white, one large plate, a thin index line, and a masked wipe between photographs. Nothing else on screen.
Story Chapters
A parchment stage with a ribbon across the top; prints cross from one chapter into the next. Worth it when the day has clear acts you want the screen to follow.
Celebration in Motion
Two prints at a time on blush pink, rearranging into a new composition at every step. The liveliest of the twelve and the one for a party.
Spiral Vortex
Prints laid along one slow curl that runs past the camera in lilac light, each one softening with distance. Motion is the point, so give it a screen people can watch properly.
Storybook Album
A gilded album on a table; a leaf turns across the spine at every step, so the set reads as pages rather than slides.
3D Curved Carousel
Photographs on the inside of a wide cylinder that curves away left and right. Each step rotates the ribbon one card, so the next print swings round toward you.
Photos in Depth
Prints hung in white mounts travelling through a lit room on one long curve: the next comes around from the right, squares up at the centre, then carries off to the left.
Each look has a preview that plays your own kept photographs on the same drawing the projector uses, at the pace currently in your draft, and stops at the end of them rather than running on. Try two of them with a photograph from your own event in hand, then decide before the room gets there.
The four numbers worth setting
- Each photograph holds for 2 to 30 seconds. Six is a room that is eating; ten is a room that is watching.
- The change between them takes 200 to 2000 milliseconds. A crossfade at 1200 on a projector reads as slow; a cut at 300 reads as a party.
- The opening card — your own title, the occasion named first — holds for 3 to 20 seconds. It is the one thing that tells a guest who walks in late what they are looking at.
- Clips play between the photographs with or without sound, and a cap of 0 to 600 seconds per clip, where 0 plays each one to the end. Set a cap; a room will not sit through a two-minute film every four minutes.
The change itself is a choice of three: a crossfade, a zoom that settles in from a slight enlargement, or a slide that pushes the new photograph in from the right.
Whoever ends up at the laptop
If presenter keys are allowed, the person running the screen needs four of them and nothing else: F for full screen, the left and right arrows to move through the collection, space to pause, M to mute or unmute a clip. Write them on the back of the run sheet, because the DJ, the caterer's staff or a cousin will be holding the keyboard by the second hour.
- Open the screen address on the machine that will actually be there, on the network the venue provides
- Set the look and the hold time you want, then preview it at the projector's distance rather than on a laptop lid
- Confirm the aspect ratio: a 16:9 projector crops a photograph made for a phone, which is a reason to keep the hold short
- Decide whether new arrivals join live, and say so out loud to whoever is running the screen
- Keep the address on paper, away from the laptop, in case the machine that was going to run it does not
Sound is the one to settle early. Most venues cannot hear a clip through a projector, and a room watching silent video is a room that stops watching.
When the screen shows nothing
It is almost always one of three things, in this order: the address lost its token on the way into the browser, submissions are sitting in a pile the host has not read yet, or the collection has not opened. The address on the sharing tab is the one to copy, and a token that has been cut off at the end is the most common cause of a blank wall at seven o'clock.
Does the screen update while the event is running?
That is a setting rather than a certainty. In live mode new photographs join without a refresh; in fixed mode the loop only changes when the screen is reopened. Choose fixed for anything that has to be predictable in front of a room.
Can the room see who sent each photograph?
Only if the host allows names on screen. Off, the wall shows photographs and nothing else, which most hosts prefer for a room containing people who do not know each other.
Will it run on a television with no computer?
If the television has a browser, the address opens in it and plays. A Fire Stick or a smart-TV browser is a common setup; a set with no browser needs any device with one plugged into an HDMI port.
What happens to the screen when uploads close?
It keeps playing what the collection holds until the closing date arrives. Nothing about the wall changes the moment the last file lands, which is useful when the room is still watching after the bar has stopped.
Do I need the room screen at all?
Plenty of collections run without one, and the gallery alone carries the whole evening. The screen is for a room that is together at the same time — which is most of the reason hosts mention it for weddings and birthdays rather than for a conference.
Set the pace before the room arrives, not during dinner
One address, twelve looks, and a preview that uses your own photographs. Fifteen minutes on the day before and the screen runs itself.
How it works
From the invitation to the morning after
Nothing here needs an app, an account or a card. Guests give a name once and send their files.
Something this page does not answer? Write to support@candidphotos.myjoyfullday.com.