Photo Story 3 is a free program that will make movies from your digital photos. You can download Photo Story from Microsoft’s website. That’s right, I said Free. And, I also said Microsoft. Those are two words that normally don’t go together!
Take advantage of it. This is a great program. It takes your digital still photos and turns them into a movie, complete with movement, music, and narration. Here’s a sample using photos we took at the Grand Canyon. Notice how the images pan left and right or zoom in and out, it feels like you’re watching a video when it’s actually still photos. You can use music clips from your library, or you can let Photo Story 3 compose the music for you. Notice how the music even ends right on time!
This links to a .wmv file, it may take a minute to download. PCs will play it using Windows Media Player. If you’re using a Mac, you may need to download a Media Player.
Another example is located on our website – this one is of one of our favorite RV parks and it includes some narration. It was uploaded to Google Video and should play on any computer.
We mostly think of Photo Story 3 for taking our travel photos and making a nice show. Adding some other graphics, and plenty of narration, you can create any kind of presentation. Here is an introduction to Geeks on Tour created completely in Photo Story 3. This one has been converted to Flash and should be viewable by any computer if you have the Flash player installed.
Of all the seminars we teach, Photo Story 3 is the easiest – you’ll find the class handout at the bottom of the Geeks on Tour Articles page. Just gather your photos together, and follow the wizard in the program. You’ll LOVE it.