Photo Story 3 for Windows: frequently asked questions

Photo Story 3 includes features that enable you to create a slide show with your digital pictures, edit your pictures, create your story with original music, add narration, and share them with your family and friends.

Create a photo story. You can create a photo story that includes motion, narration, and music. Photo Story 3 includes dramatic 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, transitions, and much more.

Edit and save your photo story. The smart touch-up features make it easy to instantly 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.

Import pictures. If you have a collection of pictures on a camera or a website, you can import these pictures into your photo stories.

The Windows Genuine Advantage validation process enables you to verify that your copy of Windows is licensed and supported by Microsoft. When you request a genuine Microsoft software download from the Microsoft Download Center, you will be prompted to complete the validation process.

After the validation process is complete, you'll be taken back to the initial download details page to obtain your requested download.

Microsoft Product Activation is an anti-piracy technology designed to verify that the product has been legitimately licensed. Photo Story 3 requires that Windows XP is activated.

You can edit and enhance your pictures in several ways by selecting any of the following options from the shortcuts on the Import and arrange your pictures page, or the Edit dialog box:

• Correct color levels

• Correct red eye

• Correct contrast

• Rotate the picture clockwise or counterclockwise

• Manually crop the picture

• Remove black borders and automatically crop the picture

You can also add effects, such as Black and White, which change the appearance of the picture.

Note that none of the changes you make will affect the original picture that is stored on your computer, a network folder, or the Internet.

You can also add titles to each picture in your story or to selected pictures only. On the Add a title to your pictures page, use the buttons over the title box to adjust the placement of your title and the font.

None of the changes that you make while you are editing a photo story affect the original pictures that are stored on your computer, a network folder, or the Internet.

You can add songs to every picture in your story, and Photo Story 3 will play each song for as long as the pictures are displayed in your story. Only one piece of music can play for a selected picture or anchor image.

You can add multiple songs from your computer, the My Music folder, or from the prerecorded music in Photo Story 3 to your story.

Photo Story 3 automatically adjusts the amount of time a piece of music will play with your story. By default, a piece of music will play for the duration of the music, to the length of the filmstrip, or to the start of the next music clip, whichever is shorter.

If you preview your story and the narration can't be heard clearly, on the Narrate your picture and customize motion page, click the Configure Microphone and Set Recording Volume button to adjust the volume setting for recording and playback.

If the narration still can't be heard over the background music, you may need to adjust the background music volume levels to accommodate your narration. To do this, on the Add background music page, click the picture in the filmstrip, and then adjust the music volume using the volume slider bar. You may need to adjust the volume and preview your story a few times to get it the way you want.

If you want to add a middle segment of a song to your photo story, you can use 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 Movie Maker to your photo story.

When using the Create Music option, Photo Story automatically adjusts the length of the music to match the length of time the pictures are shown. Therefore, if you add or delete a picture, the music will also change so that it ends with the last picture.

Copy protected music cannot be added to a photo story. The license that was purchased with the music does not allow for republication.

To playback a photo story, all you need is a media player that can play Windows Media Video (WMV) files, such as Windows Media Player 10.

Photo Story 3 is not needed to playback a photo story. To playback a photo story, all you need is a media player that can play a Windows Media Video (WMV) file, such as Windows Media Player 10.

To launch Media Center, in Windows XP Media Center Edition, on the Start menu, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and click Media Center. In My Videos, select the photo story that you want to play. The My Videos folder contains all your videos and photo stories by default.

To playback a photo story, all you need is a media player that can play a Windows Media Video file. Windows Media Player 10 is recommended.

Windows Media Player 10 Mobile can play files created by Photo Story 3.

Windows Media Player 9 Series for Pocket PC and Smartphone can only play the audio portion of files, and not the video portion, created by Photo Story 3.

If necessary, you can use Windows Movie Maker to convert Photo Story 3 files into files that will play in Windows Media Player 9 Series for Pocket PC and Smartphone, and some earlier versions of Windows Media Player Mobile.

Saving your photo story using a profile with a higher resolution can help prevent the grainy effect. You can change the resolution by choosing Settings on the Save your story page. The higher profiles contain better resolution of the pictures. The higher the resolution, the more system resources required to play the story. This can make the story appear jerky if the computer does not have enough system resources to handle high resolution video.

This can occur when a computer does not have the correct Windows Media Video Image codecs installed. To install the necessary codecs, do one of the following:

• Connect to the Internet before you open a photo story in Windows Media Player 9 series or earlier, so that the Player can download the codecs.

• On the computer where you are attempting to view the story, download and install Windows Media Player 10, which includes the necessary codecs.

If flickering occurs, you may need to reduce the hardware acceleration of your video card.

After you create your photo story, on the Save your story page, click Send this story in an e‑mail message. On the Completing Photo Story 3 for Windows page, click Continue to e-mail your story.

If your e‑mail program is configured, Photo Story will open an e‑mail message with your story attached. If your e‑mail program is not configured, on the Completing Photo Story 3 for Windows page, click Save your story, and then send the story in an e‑mail message after you configure your e‑mail program.

You can synchronize (or copy) videos, including the photo story videos, from the desktop version of Windows Media Player 10 to a Windows Mobile-based device.

To synchronize a photo story to your device, you must have Windows Media Player 10 and ActiveSync 3.7.1 or later installed on your desktop computer. Then you can connect your device to the computer and establish a partnership. The ActiveSync wizard will let you choose a synchronization method (automatic or manual) the first time you use ActiveSync.

The photo story videos will appear in the Windows Media Player 10 Mobile library on your device.

There are three ways to create a Video CD (VCD) that contains your photo stories:

1. You can obtain Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition, view the Photo Story 3-authored Windows Media Video (WMV) file in Photo Story 2, and create a VCD using the Photo Story 2 Video CD-burning feature.

2. You can obtain Microsoft Digital Image Suite 10 or above and view the Photo Story 3-authored WMV file in the photo story that comes with Microsoft Digital Image Library, and save and burn it to VCD.

3. You can obtain VCD-authoring products that convert Photo Story 3 WMV files into files that can be copied to a DVD and played in a DVD player.

Note

• VCD and DVD-authoring software is not included with Photo Story 3.

DVD authoring software is not included with Photo Story 3. However, using third-party software, there are two ways to save a photo story to a DVD.

• You can obtain Sonic DVD for Photo Story 3 from Sonic Solutions. With this plug-in, you can save to a DVD profile and burn 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 version 5 or later by Sonic Solutions or InstantCD\DVD by Pinnacle Systems. You can use this software to convert the Windows Media Video (WMV) files into files that can be copied to a DVD and played in a DVD player.

Photo Story 3 cannot import video, but does save it in the Windows Media Video (WMV) file format. The WMV file format can be imported by many programs that import video. One recommended way to add other video to your photo story is to import your photo story into Windows Movie Maker 2, and then edit or add additional videos as necessary.

Microsoft Photo Story 3 for Windows creates video from still pictures only. Windows Movie Maker can create a video from both a video source and still pictures. The advantage of Photo Story is that you can pan and zoom each image and easily create an entire photo album movie in just a few steps. Windows Movie Maker does not offer the same pan and zoom effects.

Another difference is that the Windows Media Video (WMV) file created by Photo Story 3 uses a special program that is highly optimized for saving videos that are generated from images with pan and zoom. This special program allows compressing the video to very small file sizes while maintaining high video quality. Windows Movie Maker is optimized for general purpose video files. If a photo story WMV file is opened and saved in Windows Movie Maker, the file sizes will be much larger for the corresponding video quality.