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Talking about Photo Story 3 from Beginning to End (Updated May 18)

Wondering how to get started with Photo Story? Here's the tutorial you've been looking for.

Photo Story is an easy-to-use tool to create movies from your photos. You can add all the whiz-band features you see on TV - transitions, panning, zooming and music. 

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Photo Story 3 from Beginning to End (Updated May 18)

Do you have photos of holidays, family, sporting events or gardens stored away ? Do you have a creative streak in your body, waiting for a challenge. Do what I did, bring your pictures to life and  make a musical video  with them. You will surprised how easy it is to do. First you need the free download  of Photo Story 3 for Windows, then just follow the instructions below.

Go to start, all programs, click on Photo Story 3 for Windows from the menu.

Welcome you are now ready to start your masterpiece. Good luck !!!!

Step 1  You can now begin a new story, edit a project or play a story.

Select Photos

Browse and select photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery, these can be fixed, cropped, red eye removed and colour adjusted, but this must be done before importing into Photo Story.

Import Photos

Think about your story carefully before you import your pictures, it is much easier if they are in order to start with or you will have to keep moving them so the story can be told. Heaps of fun. !!!!!    SAVE your project.

At the start of a project import 2 pictures the same, you can use Effect which will enhance the beginning by fading from one frame to another. You can also change your picture from colour to sepia, black and white, watercolour and there are other changes you can use.

Video sample of Effects.

      

Import and Arrange Pictures  

It is important to remove black borders ( not a good look) and always SAVE your project

 

You can move your pictures back and forth using the arrows or drag and drop. Delete ones you decide not to use by clicking delete X, these are only deleted from Photo Story and not from the hard drive.

Name your project for example, Rushworth 1920 - 1960.   Click to SAVE your project

Add Titles

Add titles and dates if you wish, you can select from a variety of colours, text and size. I have tried different texts but find Lucinda Calligraphy my favourite, 10 or 12 for size. The text can be placed in a number of positions on your picture.  Always SAVE

Text samples   Old English, Roman, M.T.Bold, Mistral,  Lucinda Calligraphy and there are more.

Choose your font, colour and size of script, then click ok.

 

Bottom, centre, coloured text.

Centre, coloured text.

Customize Motion and Duration 

This is a very interesting step of Photo Story, click on Customize Motion. It allows you to set the start and end of a frame. Duration can be set either automatically or you can nominate the number of seconds to display the picture.

If you do not want any panning and zooming Set end position to be the same as the start check box.

In the Start position box, to resize the rectangle, point to a corner of the rectangle and drag to the picture size you are looking to focus on.

When you have done this you can preview to see how the setting you have selected blends into your story.

Clicking the Reset button in the dialogue box discards all changes made to the selected picture on the Motion and Duration tab and Transitions tab.

You will see from the pictures below a focal point can be highlighted, it can be on a person or just something that appeals to you within that frame. It is a lot of trial and error but can make a big difference to the overall finish of your video.  Save.

 

Transitions

Below click on the Transitions box. There are 34 of these, it is worth trying each one as they all give a different effect. You can try fading, flipping, curl, slide and wheel to name a few. 

The important thing when working with transitions is not to overdo them, a small number spread out is more effective than too many close together. Spoils the whole effect !!!

If you want Photo Story to determine the number of seconds to display a transition, click the Set transition duration automatically check box. If you want to select your own time for the transition select the Number of seconds to display the transition option, then type or select a time.

Note the number of seconds that the transition displays between two pictures cannot be more than the shorter play time of one of the two pictures. Projects created by using Photo Story 3 for Windows must use a wp3 file, other wise Photo Story will not be able to open the file.

To preview your story with the panning and zooming effects and transitions, click Preview. If you are happy with what you have achieved, remember to Save.

   

  

Video of sample Transitions

 

      

Narrate your Story

If you are really clever you can use your microphone and narrate your story, I have not tried this, but if you have the setup give it a go, you may be able to show me how, I have done some reading and hope these hints may help.

Configure your microphone to make sure you can record sounds, check microphone and speaker volumes are ok.

Make notes and decide where you want to use them, you can record up to 5 minutes on each picture in any order. If you are unhappy with what you have done, delete the narration and record again, deleting does not alter other changes, such as a transitions.

To begin recording click the picture, click the Record Narration button and then speak into your microphone, when you finish the narration for a picture, click the next picture button, then speak again. To stop narrating a picture, click the Stop Recording button. To preview your story, click Preview. Once again those two words, Save Project.

 

 Select Music

You can select music from your files or use the Create Music available above. You must be very aware of copyright, alright  for your own personal use but you cannot use for public viewing.  Programs like Soapbox will not allow this.

You need to time your story and the music you decide to use so it will make your story complete. There are programs like Audacity- Lame ( Free downloads) which can help you edit the music, it really is fun. !!!    Ha Ha.

There are many create music options to choose from. Classical, Jazz, Funk, Country, Latin, New Age, Pop, Rock, Silence, Soundtrack and World. I am sure you will find something to suit you and your story.

To listen to your music during selection, you need either speakers or microphone, also a lot of time.

Sample Video, music selected from Create Music

      

Saving your Story

Now you can decide what you would like to do with your story. You can save your story to play back on your computer, send story in an email, Pocket PC or Smart phone with Windows Media Player.

Click which box you wish, type the path and file name for your story or click browse to find a particular folder or to replace an existing story.

 

 Building your Story

 Step 1  Building your story.       Step 2  Generating sound.

 Step 3  Mixing audio.                Step 4  Generating video.

 

 

Well done !!!!  Now all you have to do is view your story. I am sure you still have many more photos and other stories waiting to be told, so keep your camera handy.

Photo Story 3 is a great program which makes you think not only about the photos you take, but how they can be created into wonderful memories to show family and friends.

 

  

 

 

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Images with Postcard Style

Here are some scans of photos I took years ago, as you will notice if you have been along the Hume Highway North of Albury in the last few years.

 

                            Mirage Resort Port Douglas

         Larry The  Lobster - Kingston SA

Don does it again!

To create this movie, Don took a series of photos as he added more coins to the design.

In Photo Story, he reduced the display time for each photo down to half-a-second.

Also note that Don now has his own opening and closing graphics - he created these in Paint.NET. 

Click the link below and enjoy Don's work of art.

Remember that there are plenty of movies that the webDotWizards have created on Soapbox - just do a search for Rushworth and 50 or 60 will be listed.

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Talking about Don: Money Con

 

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Don: Money Con

 
Video: Don: Money Con

Some valuable hints from Kevin when you're using Windows Live Photo Gallery:

If you want to crop a photo, do that job first before doing the Fix using Auto Adjust.

• When Fixing a photo, try the Auto Adjust option (the top one) first of all and see what happens. Kevin says you'll be more often than not amazed that your photo is improved far better than what you might be able to achieve had you edited it manually.
• Use the Ratings option as another way to look at your photos. Yes, it'll take a bit of time to give your photos a rating (although, of course, you can do a bulk rating and then change them individually).

Here are some ideas to wiz up your Live Space. We'll try some in the New Year. 

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Gadgetize your Space and Events

Did you know that you can add stuff from the Web to your space or event without even knowing a tiny bit of code?  They’re called gadgets, and thanks to some hard-working developers from around the world, there are now over 1,500 gadgets available worldwide for Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Events.

I wanted to highlight a few specific gadgets. The gadgets listed below make keeping in touch with your friends and Messenger contacts more fun, finding content on your blog faster, and adding interesting content from MSN easier.  So, check out and install the gadgets below and, as always, keep the comments coming!

-Chris
Product Manager, Windows Live Spaces

 

Windows Live Messenger Gadget http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=5da858b5-fa45-4730-89f8-380702da99cd&pl=5&bt=7 Search Gadgets Search My Blog - Search box http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=94be978d-c62a-4640-b63f-a1d412afb337&pl=5&bt=7 Search My Blog - Tagcloud http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=ef195187-2cae-49b5-afe9-a50eb7ccb766&pl=5&bt=7 Silverlight Streaming Video Insertion http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=f55426a2-1d8d-4db7-8770-ea30cb393b2a&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Content Encarta Quote of the Day http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3c93e552-d8b2-4c51-9d65-83a6e6aa2cbb&pl=5&bt=7 Encarta RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=4ede7e47-c127-4a9f-9440-75825a4f3c57&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Autos RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=0774022b-0c3c-479e-abd1-a5ac3df09206&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Entertainment RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=a50310fb-fd34-4efe-843f-8bf6213104a8&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Homepage RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=b879476d-7e05-431a-9098-b669ada7a797&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Money RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=7f8d5a7d-23cf-4a3f-b019-ba25ccb0b73c&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Shopping RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=91f9a478-a692-4646-9a5f-7c29c1fa1f00&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Tech and Gadgets RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=2521aeaf-4ef6-43fa-87d5-2607e7bc4b61&pl=5&bt=7 MSN Video RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3f64534a-5a96-4021-b600-674718355574&pl=5&bt=7 Sports News by Fox Sports RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=b01f65ba-7c3c-4871-a678-8bb8920ceec1&pl=5&bt=7 Sports Videos by Fox Sport RSS http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=c2d5cd3f-8424-4516-af4b-20cf5cbc33f0&pl=5&bt=7

Web Messenger Gadget             Search My Blog      Encarta Quote of the Day   Sports Videos by Fox Sports

 

Technorati tags: Windows Live Gadgets, Windows Live Spaces, Gadgets, Widgets, Windows Live Events

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Farewell Gillian

"Thank You" Gillian...we love you...

The Criterion Hotel is the venue for an Open House event on Thursday 20 December to say farewell to retiring coordinator at Rushworth Community House,  Gillian Schoenborn.

Just come along any time from 6pm onwards for a drink, chat or a meal to acknowledge the eleven years that Gillian has been at the house.

left: Debbie Bish and Sue Barlow.

Drop into the Community House any day to say hello to our new coordinators.

Here's some ready-made browsing for you... plenty of new and updated imagery. Full list below so scroll down and explore. 

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VEIPP Drops 36 Terabytes before the Holiday Break

Just in time for Holiday surfing, the Image Processing pipeline team delivered 36 Terabytes of new and updated Oblique and Ortho imagery to Virtual Earth. Jason Willison, our Imagery PM, sent me the update list below. Nice job getting this done early this month - Ops and data center guys like to enjoy time off too :-)

Here are the highlights…

• 44 new hi-res orthos (aka aerials) from 3Di using the UltraCam
• 36 new US areas of Pictometry Bird’s Eye oblique scenes
• 26 new EU areas of BLOM Bird’s Eye scenes
• 5 areas of US orthos from GlobeXplorer
• 17 areas of orthos around the world from GeoEye
• Updated orthos in England/Wales/Scotland from Getmapping.
• Holland orthos from DKLN.

And here's the details...

Birds Eye (Obliques)

USA (Pictometry):

• Kern, CA
• Shasta, CA
• El Paso, CO
• Danbury, CT
• City of East Haven, CT
• Prince George, MD
• Kalamazoo, MI
• Kent, MI
• St Louis, MO
• Mississippi Metro
• Mecklenberg Metro, NC
• Raleigh, NC
• Hunterdon Metro, NJ
• Columbia, NY
• Erie, NY
• Nassau, NY
• Niagara, NY
• Orange, NY
• Rensselaer, NY
• Steuben, NY
• Ulster, NY
• Poughkeepie Metro, NY
• Philadelphia, PA
• Harrisburg Metro, PA
• Greenville, SC
• Spartanburg, SC
• Loudon, TN
• Knoxville, TN (parts 1 & 2)
• McLennan, TX
• Nueces, TX
• PotterRandall, TX
• Beaufort Metro, TX
• Richmond, VA
• Fairfax, VA
• Skagit, WA
• Dane, WI

Europe (BLOM):

• Brussels, Belgium
• Luzern, Switzerland
• Winterthur, Switzerland
• Zurich, Switzerland
• Frankfurt, Germany
• Madrid, Spain 
• Zaragoza, Spain
• Castleford, UK
• Chester, UK
• Crewe, UK
• Darlington, UK
• Dearne Valley Urban Area, UK
• Harrogate/Knaresborough, UK
• Hartlepool, UK
• Leeds, UK
• London, UK
• Macclesfield/Pretsbury, UK
• Middlesborough, UK
• Milton Keynes, UK
• Newcastle, UK
• Reading/Workingham, UK
• Scarborough, UK
• Scunthorpe, UK
• York, UK

Orthos

3Di Hi-res (15cm, unless indicated):

• Allentown PA
• Bridgeport CT
• Cary NC
• San Bernardino CA
• Pasadena CA
• Ogden UT
• Manchester NH
• Fontana CA
• Corona CA
• Chino CA
• Gladstone MO
• Newport News VA
• Riverside CA
• Salt Lake City UT
• Stamford CT
• Waterbury CT
• West Valley City UT
• Aurora CO
• S tLouis MO
• Kansas City KS
• EauClaire WI
• Cleveland OH
• Quebec city (30cm)
• Arvada CO
• Boulder CO
• Davenport IA
• El Monte CA
• Independence MO
• Kansas City MO
• Lakewood CO
• Overland Park KS
• Peoria IL
• Salem OR
• Topeka KS
• Wichita KS
• Calgary 2006 (30cm)
• Eugene OR
• Fargo ND
• Green Bay WI
• Medford OR
• Nampa ID
• Springfield IL
• Tokyo JPN
• Waukegan IL

GlobeXplorer (1ft):

• Birmingham
• Portland
• Maryland, Northern Virgina, DC
• Tampa Ft Myers
• Sacramento Region

GeoEye (1m):

• Valencia, Spain
• Oporto, Spain
• Thessaloniki (Salonica), Greece
• Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
• Goteborg, Sweden
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Brussels, Belgium
• Oslo, Norway
• Grand Canaria/Las Palmas, Canary Islands
• Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• Casablanca, Morocco
• Kuwait City, Kuwait
• Dhaka, Bangladesh
• Tahiti, French Polynesia
• Moscow, Russia
• Christchurch, New Zealand
• Wellington, New Zealand

GetMapping UK:

• Wales
• Scotland

Holland DKLN :

• Many Areas :-)

 

Technorati tags: Virtual Earth, Birds Eye

These are the latest updates to 3D imagery on Live Maps. You'll be asked to download and install the 3D viewer if you explore any of the cities listed below. 

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6000 Square miles of 3D cities added to VE. Fargo, Liverpool, Kansas City and many more...

Along with Yesterday's mega release of imagery, the 3D team has pushed out nearly 60 new textured cities into the virtual world. I love the look of older cities like Liverpool when modeled in 3D. Turn on a layer of geodata contributed by other users across the web (Collections -> Explore menu) and have fun.

CALIFORNIA Chino (124 sq. mi.) Corona (65.17 sq. mi.) El Monte (129 sq. mi.) Fontana (100 sq. mi.) Fullerton (122 sq. mi.) Ontario (99.43 sq. mi.) Pasadena (108 sq. mi.) Riverside (123 sq. mi.) San Bernardino (126 sq. mi.) COLORADO Arvada (207 sq. mi.) Aurora (237 sq. mi.) Boulder (131 sq. mi.) Lakewood (108 sq. mi.) CONNECTICUT Hartford (89.32 sq. mi.) New Haven (70.29 sq. mi.) Waterbury (81.46 sq. mi.) IOWA Davenport (93.46 sq. mi.) IDAHO Nampa (103 sq. mi.) ILLINOIS Peoria (83.34 sq. mi.) Springfield (79.38 sq. mi.) Waukegan (77.33 sq. mi.) KANSAS Kansas City (53.21 sq. mi.) Overland Park (168 sq. mi.) Topeka (74.54 sq. mi.) Wichita (97.86 sq. mi.) MASSACHUSSETS Lowell (85.32 sq. mi.) Springfield (87.43 sq. mi.) Worcester (54.55 sq. mi.) MISSOURI Gladstone (82.76 sq. mi.) Independence (83.61 sq. mi.) Kansas City (94.76 sq. mi.) St Louis (129 sq. mi.)

NORTH CAROLINA Cary (83.93 sq. mi.) Charlotte (75.73 sq. mi.) Durham (113 sq. mi.) Fayetteville (99.34 sq. mi.) Greensboro (91.59 sq. mi.) Raleigh (104 sq. mi.) NORTH DAKOTA Fargo (86.02 sq. mi.) NEW HAMPSHIRE Manchester (88.08 sq. mi.) OHIO Cleveland (122 sq. mi.) OREGON Eugene (90.13 sq. mi.) Gresham (148 sq. mi.) Hillsboro (111 sq. mi.) Salem (77.59 sq. mi.) RHODE ISLAND Providence (82.71 sq. mi.) SOUTH DAKOTA Rapid City (207 sq. mi.) Sioux Falls (64.72 sq. mi.) UTAH Provo (79.74 sq. mi.) Salt Lake City (99.66 sq. mi.) West Valley City (95.8 sq. mi.) VIRGINIA Newport News (144 sq. mi.) Norfolk (172 sq. mi.) Richmond (99.76 sq. mi.) WISCONSIN Eau Claire (86.58 sq. mi.) Green Bay (85.28 sq. mi.)

CANADA Lachine (60.9 sq. mi.) UNITED KINGDOM Liverpool (43.04 sq. mi.)

Kansas City

Technorati Tags: Virtual Earth, VE3D, 3D Models

Removing red-eye in Live Photo Gallery is a snazz... 

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Live Photo Gallery - red-eye removal

Yonks ago Margaret (a found webDotWizard) had some photos which needed red-eye removal. At the time, Ifranview was the only tool available. After spending hours to get the red-eye neatly removed, we found Irfanview too awkward to use and we never really got the job done properly.

 

Calling up the same photos in Live Photo Gallery to remove red-eye is a breeze - and it works.

 

Choose the photo, click Fix on the top menu and then choose Red-Eye on the side pane. The instructions are there for you to follow. Zoom in on your photo and then draw the selection rectangle over the red-eye and whoosh!!

 

See Margaret's transformed photos here.

• George is always adding to his Bills Horse Trough collection - Description and photo of a horse trough outside Annandale Public School and here, too.
• Carol's Mosaic Barn is alive and well (and seen updating her site at Rushworth Community House)
• Design by Nature (Louise) has added some photo albums of recent work... and holiday snaps, too.
• Don is always trying out new things with Photo Story
• Kevin has more tips on how to bring an old photo back to life.
• Ken (aka Poppy Ironbark fame) has an interesting photo album of working draft horses

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Live Photo Gallery hints and tips - using tags

This post - with lots of screenshots - accompanies webDotWiz's Oct 4 article on webDotWiz Online (www.webdotwiz.com), Live Photo Gallery hints and tips which is also posted here on webDotWiz Online has a Space.

In the above article, webDotWiz used a folder called Holidays to illustrate how you might tag photos. Well, webDotWiz doesn't have such a folder but he does have a folder called Screenshots and none of the images in that folder had tags when he started the screenshots in this post. Now they all have tags .

webDotWiz began by loading Windows Live Photo Gallery and opening up his Screenshots folder - it contains about 150 images, and is a real mixture:

Even though all these images are in one folder, because they relate to all sorts of different contexts, using tags will enable webDotWiz to more easily find a certain image or a group of images that relates to a particular topic. For example, those Paint.NET images above should all be tagged accordingly.

So webDotWiz's first job was to select all the photos in the Screenshots folder and give them a tag called Screenshots. You can see he was trying to be organised before he started using Live Photo Gallery. So he went to File and chose Select all:

Now it's time to give all these images a tag called Screenshots (if the right-hand information pane is not visible in Live Photo Gallery, click on Info on the top menu to open it):

So click on Add Tags and type in your tag - webDotWiz entered Screenshots and pressed the ENTER key (or you can click the mouse):

Note how Live Photo Gallery picks up that webDotWiz has been a good lad and already tagged a few images in the 150 or so screenshots he's stored and which include all sorts of subjects. There'll be a later post on how you can use this feature to help you more quickly assign the same tag to groups of photos so you save time but get organised.

Now let's take a small group of these screenshot images and add another tag to organise ourselves a further step:

webDotWiz has picked a group of screenshots he used in a tutorial on how to add your own background image to your Live Space:

This group all deal with using Live Writer so webDotWiz will tag each one in the group accordingly:

And the group fits in with tutorials (like this one) that webDotWiz has written up so Tutorials is another handy tag:

At this stage webDotWiz can ask Live Photo Gallery to show all images tagged as Screenshots then narrow down the selection by getting images tagged as Tutorials on Live Writer (the third tag). But he wants to go one step further because he's got lots of tututorial screenshots about Live Writer so to be more specific he decides to use another tag Background image:

So now in the future webDotWiz can ask Live Photo Gallery to show all images that are tutorials about using a background image in Live Writer.

Once you've entered different tags and your list increases, you can save some typing by selecting a group of photos and dragging them onto the tag you want to apply to the group;

So webDotWiz selects all the screenshots he's made thus far for this tutorial - here's one:

The whole group is dragged onto Tutorials in the tag list to apply it to each image in the group:

While the group is still selected, webDotWiz applied a couple of more tags:

So now webDotWiz has a group of screenshot images that he can use (and add to) whenever he wants to write up a tutorial about tagging photos and images in Live Photo Gallery. He doesn't have to remember which folder these images are stored in under My Pictures - all he need do is click the appropriate tag from the list in Live Photo Gallery

Posted with Live Writer. Irfanview and OneNote were used to capture the screenshots.

Technorati tags: Windows Live Photo Gallery, tagging photos, tags

Doris continues to add more to her Live Map collection, The Early Families of Whroo.

As well, Genie has started a collection of her travels around New Zealand.

Posted with Live Writer.

Louise's Design by Nature has lots of new photos and albums at http://design-by-nature.spaces.live.com.

Carol has updated her Mosaic Barn site (http://mosaic-barn.spaces.live.com/) with info about the upcoming Open Garden day and new photos.