Archive for the ‘Useful Software’ Category
Microsoft Photo Story
This weekend was my wife’s 30th birthday and being the romantic fool I am, I wanted to do something extra special for her. Seeing as this was the first big birthday to come along since her 21st, I figured I’d try and collect together a load of old photos of her through the years and compile them all in a book that her friends could sign and have a chuckle at. Well to cut a long story short, I was running out of time getting all the pictures together and I suddenly remembered Mike Torres blogging about a piece of software that might allow me to put together a digitial slideshow. That software is Microsoft Photo Story and I’m here to tell you it’s fantastic!
Microsoft Photo Story (version 3) is a free piece of software that allows you to create a multimedia photo slideshow, which you can set to music and add text or voice commentary to. You can configure how pictures are displayed and how they arrive on screen. There’s basic image editing tools, that allow you to remove red-eye, crop images and adjust brightness, colour and contrast. There’s sample midi music that can be used to accompany the slideshow or you can use music from your own collection. It has everything you need to create a really professional video.
As well as having all the features you’d want for something like this, it’s also a doddle to use. I didn’t even touch the help documentation and I managed to produce a video that made people laugh and moved them to tears in just eight hours! Perhaps the only thing this product lacks, is the ability to add video clips into the slideshow, but then Microsoft are giving this to us for free, so I’m not going to moan about that.
If you want to go one step further and create a DVD, there’s a dedicated plugin you can purchase that will allow you to do just that, but I’m sure if you scour the net you can find freeware tools (or cheaper tools) that will allow you to do the same task. All in all, I’m very impressed with this software. It’s a great way to bring static memories to life and create something really special for loved ones.
Download the software: Microsoft Photo Story 3
