How To Create a Photo Story

Photo Story 3 for Windows

You can use Photo Story 3 for Windows to create stories using pictures and music.

Photo Story 3 is a free download that can be added to computers that have Windows XP.

Before You Begin

Locate and save your pictures

To create a photo story, you need pictures! You will need to locate and save pictures to your H drive or to your removable drive.

1. / Use an image search engine or one of the websites below to locate a picture you want to use.
2. / Right click on the picture, then click Save Picture As.
3. / Select where you want to save your picture, give your picture a name, and click Save.

Pics 4 Learning -

ClipArtGallery -

Library of Congress Pictures -

Download your music

Photo Story 3 has some music built into the program. Popular music can be used to accompany your project – but you need to do this step at home. Download your music on a thumbdrive and save it as a WMA, MP3 or WAV file.

Opening Photo Story

1. / Click Start, point to Programs, and then click Photo Story 3 for Windows.
2. / Click Begin a new story, and then click Next.

Importing and arranging your pictures

1. / ClickImport Pictures.
2. / Locate your saved pictures.
3. / Add all of the pictures you may want to use.
To add more than one picture at a time, press and hold the CTRL key and click on the pictures you want to add, and then click OK.
All of your pictures should now be present in the filmstrip, as shown in the following screen shot.

Now you can drag a picture in the filmstrip to change the order. You can click a picture in the filmstrip and click Edit to rotate it, adjust the color, fix red eye or add effects.
4. / When you are finished making changes to your pictures, click Next.

Adding a title to your pictures

1. / Click the first picture – one you want to use as a title page - and then type the title of your project in the text box to the right of the picture.
2. / Click the Select Font button to change the style of the text.
3. / When you are finished adding text to your pictures, click Next.

Narrating your pictures

1. / Set up your microphone by clicking on the Microphone button.
Complete the wizard by following the onscreen instructions
2. / Click a picture in the filmstrip.
3. / Write what you plan on saying in the cue card area.
4. / Click the Record Narrationbutton to start recording narration.
The red dot in the record button will flash to let you know that recording is taking place.
5. / When you have finished narrating the picture, click the Stop Recording button.
6. / Repeat steps 2 thru 4 for each picture for which you want to add narration.
Note:Narration for each picture can not exceed 5 minutes.
7. / Once you have added narration, click the first picture in the filmstrip, and then click Preview to see how your story looks and sounds.
8. / Close the preview window, and click Next.

Adding background music

You can add music or create music for your project.

To add music:

1. / Click the first picture in the filmstrip and then click Select Music.
2. / Click My Documents from the left menu.
3. / Browse to find your music file and then click Open.

The music you just added is shown as a colored bar above the picture in the filmstrip, as shown in the following screen shot. This helps you determine which pictures will be shown for each piece of music you add.

To create music for your story

1. / Click a picture in the film strip where you want to start the music, and then click Create Music.
2. / Customize your music properties to fit your project.
3. / Click Play to hear what the music will sound like.
4. / Click Next, to move on to the final steps.

Saving your story

1. / SelectSave your story for playback on your computer in the activities list.
2. / Click Browse to choose the location and file name of your story.
3. / On the Save As dialog box, browse to your H drive.
4. / In the Filename text box, type the name of your project.
5. / Click Save, and then click Next.

Viewing your story

You may now view your story on any computer in school that has Windows Media Player.

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