Microsoft
Photo Story 3
by Marc Liron - Microsoft MVP
Introduction To Microsoft Photo
Story 3...
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Back in April 2004, I
had the opportunity to take a look at Microsoft Photo Story 3,
whilst visiting the Windows Media Team building as part of the MVP
annual get together.
And I loved what I
saw...
In fact I was not the
only one, even "PapaJohn"
the online Guru for Windows Movie Maker and Photo Story 2
was impressed!
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So What Is Microsoft
Photo Story 3?
Just imagine for a
moment that your hard drive is full of images taken with your
digital camera...
Actually you probably
don't have to imagine to hard if you are anything like me, my laptop is
full of family photos etc.
So what exactly can we
do with ALL these digital images?
Well this time
imagine...
Animating your photos
automatically or creating your own effects with pan and zoom
options... Even adding transitions, captions, and titles to give YOUR
story a "professional" look.
Got a voice and want
to show it off? Then why not add a voice over to your photo
story video...
You see Microsoft
Photo Story 3 allows *YOU* to get extremely creative with your
digital memories...
And best of ALL it is
FREE to
genuine owners of Windows XP!
So Lets Take A Tour Of
Microsoft Photo Story 3
(NB - I
have provided some samples at the end of this article for you to
view and make more sense of some of the features of Photo Story 3.)
Import And Arrange
Your Pictures
When you run Photo
Story 3, with the view to making a new project, the first option is to
select "Begin a new story"... After clicking this option
our first task is to "import" our pictures.
You can import
pictures from your computer, a network folder, or an MSN Groups Web
site. For each story, you can import up to 300 pictures,
which can be files with .bmp, .dib, .eps, .gif, .jhif, .jpe, .jpeg,
.jpg, .pcd, .pcx, .png, .psd, .rle, .tga, and .tif file name
extensions.
This is achieved by
using the inbuilt File Browser rather than calling upon the familiar
Windows Explorer window. Personally I prefer the Photo Story 3 file
browser as it is simple to navigate and has a great zoom in/out
feature!
You can also import
pictures from your Digital Image Library if Microsoft Digital
Image Pro 10 is installed on your computer and you have opened
the Digital Image Library.
Your pictures appear
in the film strip at the bottom of the page. If you import more
pictures, Microsoft Photo Story 3 adds them at the end of the
film strip. (see Fig 1.)

Click to enlarge
Fig 1 - Importing images
Removing Black Borders
Once you have
selected your pictures, and they are shown in the "film strip",
you have the option to use the "Remove black borders button" if
required.
The button is available if Photo Story 3 detects that some pictures
in your story do not have a 4:3 aspect ratio (which is the
relation of the width to the height of the picture.) This is a handy
feature to make your "story" look professional.
Photo Story 3 will
make a "guess" at what it thinks is the best fit from your
image, but this can be altered by you if you so choose.
(see Fig 2.)

Click to enlarge
Fig 2 - Removing black borders
There is also a "picture
preview" facility and this is of particular use if you decide to
use any of the picture editing tools available:
- Correct Colour
Levels
- Correct Red Eye
- Rotate Counter clockwise
- Rotate Clockwise
Add
Titles To Your Picture
The next step is to
add a title page at the beginning and end of your story. You
can also add titles to each picture in your story or to selected
pictures only.
By default, when you add a title to a picture, the picture is
static. No motion, or panning and zooming effects are applied to
pictures with titles. But this can be manually changed using the
custom motion tool, if you so choose.
Add Narration And
Custom Motion
You can record up to
five minutes of narration for each picture in your story (optional).
You can narrate the pictures in any order you want and if you do not
like the narration for a picture, you can delete the narration and
record it again. (see Fig 3.)
Deleting the
narration does not delete any of the other enhancements made to your
story so far!
(You can also type
notes for each picture to aid your memory as you narrate!)

Click to enlarge
Fig 3 - Add narration
Customizing Motion
& Selecting Transitions
If you do NOT
want Microsoft Photo Story 3 to determine the individual picture
panning and zooming effects automatically, you can
choose to control these effects manually in the "Customize
Motion" window (see Fig 4).
By setting the motion
manually, you can select the general areas of a picture that will
appear at the beginning and end of the picture's video clip.
In the Customize Motion window, you can also do one or more of the
following:
- Specify the number of seconds that a picture without
narration is displayed when your story is played. (The settings you
specify in this dialog box only apply to the selected picture.)
- Specify
whether a picture starts playing with a transition, and select the
transition.
- Specify the
number of seconds that a transition is displayed when your story is
played. (The settings you specify in this dialog box only apply to
the selected picture.)

Click to enlarge
Fig 4 - Customize motion &
transitions
Adding Background
Music To Your Story
You can add
background music that plays during your story. A different piece of
music can play for each picture or for a group of pictures. You can
add as many pieces of music to a story as there are pictures in the
story. (Though this will increase the overall time it takes to save
the finished story and the actual size of the file too.)
There are two types
of music you can add as a background to your story.
(see Fig 5.)
WMA, MP3 and WAV
You can use music
from your computer such as WMA, MP3 and WAV files. Photo Story will
then make your story as long as the music you are adding. So a 3:30
minute MP3 track will mean a 3:30 minute Photo Story...
Please note though
that if you are trying to use a DRM (Digital Rights Management)
protected track, this will NOT work with Photo Story 3.
(e.g. tracks you have
bought and downloaded from MSN Music Store.)

Click to enlarge
Fig 5 - Add background music
The Create Music
option
The Create Music
option lets you customize pre-recorded pieces and styles of music by
selecting the genre, style, bands, mood, tempo, and intensity of the
music. These are royalty free so no fear of copyright infringement
by using them! (see Fig 6.)

Click to enlarge
Fig 6 - Create music options
Saving Your Story
With "Activities".
You can select an
"activity" for your story and save it. The activity that you select
for your story determines which profiles or quality settings are
available for your story. (see Fig 7.)
Default activities
include saving the story to play on your computer, sending
the story in an e-mail message, and saving the story for
playing on portable devices such as Portable Media Center's,
Pocket PCs and Smartphones.
NB - If you save the story for playback on a portable device,
you must use another program to copy the story to the device.
e.g. Windows Media Player 10 is required to copy content onto a
Portable Media Center.

Click to enlarge
Fig 7 - Save your project
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Microsoft Photo Story 3
has an open plug-in architecture which means as a developer
you can extend the functionality of this fantastic product...
So what could you
develop?
- How about a
plug-in that allows folk to transcode the final story from Windows
Media Video 9 Image v2 to MPEG2 for instance?
- How about a
plug-in that will allow you to burn to VCD or DVD?
- How about a
plug-in that allows you to upload the final story via FTP?
Microsoft is
expecting developers to do just these things and is providing a
section on the Photo Story 3 website, called
Photo Story Activities, where it will show case these plug-ins!
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Final Comments:
1) Microsoft
Photo Story 3 does NOT use the standard Windows Media Video (WMV)
codec but a special codec developed for compressing still images:
Windows Media Video 9 Image v2
In very basic terms
this codec can take just one frame and apply a set of "motion
rules" so that you can create a video story of your images,
without the usual 25 or 30 frames per second as happens
with the normal WMV codecs.
Because of this you
can have stunning stories created within minutes that have a very
small file size! ... Even emailing a video is possible because of
this :-)
(Audio is compressed
by using the Windows Media Audio 9.1 codec.)
2) In my opinion
ANY owner of Windows XP should be trying out this FREE
software! It's just so cool and so simple to use.
No video and audio
time lines to worry about!
3) I am so
impressed with this software that I am now looking at using it
to create product recommendations on my website...
How
To Get YOUR Copy Of Microsoft Photo Story 3
So how can you get your copy now?
Well as already described, this is a FREE product.
BUT, you MUST be running an "activated" version of either:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP
Professional, Windows XP Media Center Edition, or Windows XP Tablet
PC Edition.
Photo Story 3 is part of Microsoft's new
Windows Genuine Advantage validation program. So if your
installation of XP is pirated you will not be able to use
Microsoft Photo Story 3.
If this is your first time using the "Windows
Genuine Advantage validation program you will be asked to install an
small ActiveX file in order to proceed.
(see Fig 8.)

Click to enlarge
Fig 8 - Install Active X file
Ready to grab your copy?...head on over to:
http://www.updatexp.com/photostory3
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Kind Regards

Marc Liron -
Bio
Microsoft MVP
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