Photo Story 3 for Windows
Learn how to create a photo story—a slideshow of your digital pictures with narration, music, and more.
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What is Photo Story 3 for Windows and how do I get a copy?
Photo Story 3 lets you to create a slideshow with your digital pictures, edit your pictures, create your story with original music, add narration, and share them with your family and friends.
You can create a photo story that includes motion, narration, and music. Photo Story 3 includes pan and zoom effects, picture rotation, and cropping tools to customize your photos. You can also compose an original soundtrack from directly within Photo Story 3, narrate your story and add special effects and transitions.
The smart touch-up features make it easy to remove red eye and correct the lighting in your pictures. There are also several different options for saving a story and its associated project so that you can edit the story later or share it immediately.
For more information about Photo Story 3, including how to get a copy, see Photo Story 3 for Windows.
How do I create a photo story?
To learn how to create and view a photo story using the pictures on your digital camera, see Make Your Pictures Come to Life with Photo Story 3.
How can I add more than one background song to my photo story?
You can add multiple songs from your computer or My Music folder to your story. Note that copy-protected music (such as music that you purchased from an online store) can't be added to a photo story because the license that was purchased with the music does not allow for republication.
Photo Story 3 also contains prerecorded music that you can add to your story.
To add music from your computer to your story
1. | On the Add background music page, click a picture on the film strip. |
2. | Click the Select Music button. |
3. | In the Open dialog box, locate the music you want to add, and then click Open. The music file can be in Windows Media Audio (WMA), MP3, or WAV format. When you add music to the selected picture, the same music is added to all of the pictures after the selected picture. |
4. | To add different music to another picture, repeat steps 1 to 3. You can add new music to each picture in the film strip or to a set of pictures in the film strip. |
5. | Click Preview to play your story. Your entire story plays—starting at the selected picture—complete with any narration, title pages, and background music that you added. |
For more information, see "Adding music from your computer to your story" in Photo Story 3 for Windows Help.
How can I add a segment from a song to my photo story?
If you want to add a middle segment of a song to your photo story, you can use Microsoft Windows Movie Maker 2 to create a music file that contains only that particular segment of music. Then you can add the music file created in Windows Movie Maker to your photo story.
To edit a music file in Windows Movie Maker 2
1. | Open Windows Movie Maker 2. |
2. | Drag the music file that you want to add to your photo story from any folder or location on your computer to the Collections pane. Windows Movie Maker 2 automatically creates a new project. |
3. | In the Collections pane, click the music file that you want to add to the Movie Maker project, and then drag it to the timeline. The timeline lets you review and change the timing of the music clip in a project. |
4. | To trim the unwanted portions of the song, click the clip on the timeline to display the trim handles, click one of the trim handles, and then drag it to a new point on the timeline. |
5. | To save the edited music clip, on the File menu, click Save Movie File. The Save Movie wizard walks you through the process of saving the movie with the edited music clip as a WMA file. You will need to remember the file name and location where you saved the clip. |
6. | Follow the procedure in the previous question to add the edited music clip to the picture that you want the music to begin on. |
For more information, see "Editing clips" in Windows Movie Maker Help.
How do I create a Video CD of my photo story?
VCD-authoring software is not included with Photo Story 3; however, you can get VCD-authoring products that work with Photo Story files, such as MyDVD by Sonic Solutions or InstantCD\DVD by Pinnacle Systems.
How to I create a DVD of my photo story?
DVD-authoring software is not included with Photo Story 3; however, there are two ways to create a DVD that contains your photo stories.
| • | You can get Sonic DVD for Photo Story 3 from the Sonic Web site. This plug-in allows you to save your photo story to a DVD profile and then burn it to a DVD, all within the Photo Story 3 wizard. |
| • | You can obtain DVD-authoring products that work with Photo Story files, such as MyDVD by Sonic Solutions or InstantCD\DVD by Pinnacle Systems. This software converts the Windows Media Video (WMV) file into a file that can be burned to a DVD and played in a DVD player. |
Why can't I see video (or why does it disappear) when I play my photo story in Windows Media Player?
Video may not be displayed if your computer doesn't have the correct Windows Media Video Image codecs installed.
To install the necessary codecs
| • | If you are using Windows Media Player 9 Series or earlier, connect to the Internet before you open your photo story so that the Player can download the codecs. You can also download and install Windows Media Player 10, which includes the necessary codecs. |
If the video is displayed, but it stops, skips, or flickers, you may need to reduce the hardware acceleration of your video card.
To reduce video acceleration
1. | In Windows Media Player, on the Tools menu, click Options. |
2. | On the Performance tab, in the Video acceleration area, move the slider bar to the left to reduce video acceleration. |
For more information about video-playback issues in Windows Media Player, see the Windows Media Player FAQ.
If you don't find the answer to your question in this column, be sure to check the Archive. Media Advice is not an official Microsoft Support channel. If you need immediate help for an urgent problem, we recommend that you visit Microsoft Help and Support.