Microsoft Photo Story – Motion and transition effects

Creating a slideshow of your favorite digital pictures can be quite an experience. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be producing slideshow after slideshow like a professional. This blog continues the series of blogs that discuss creating digital slideshows using the free Microsoft Photo Story 3. Today we’ll cover the fun motion and transition aspects of slideshows.

Customize motion

Have you ever heard of the pan and scan effect used in films? I am sure you have seen the effect in action, probably in a documentary or movie that used photos in some way. Basically, the pan and scan affect occurs when the camera seems to zoom in on pictures or move such that it doesn’t seem like you are just looking at a still photograph. You can apply the same techniques as used in professional productions to your very own photo slideshow! Photo Story 3 will automatically apply the pan and scan feature for you, unless you tell it not to. You can also customize how much motion is involved with each picture. The screenshot below shows were you can find the “customize motion” options menu.

The first tab open the “Motion and Duration” tab (see below). This menu allows you to specify how long each picture is displayed as well as the type of motion for each picture. For example, if you want to first see a picture at normal size, but eventually zoom in towards one specific part, then this is the menu you’ll use to do so. Just click on the checkbox, “Specify start and end position of motion,” and you will be able to change the motion to your liking. Simply, drag the borders of the picture to where you want them for both the start and end positions. Any part of the picture that is covered by the translucent white border will not be shown in your slideshow. Unless you decide to change the duration, Photo Story will automatically set how long each picture is displayed depending on the motion you specify. It is easy to preview a proposed change by clicking on the preview button near the bottom of the menu.

Transitions

The second tab located on the customize motion menu is the “Transition” tab (see below). This menu allows you to change the transitions used between pictures. There are quite a few to choose from and if you don’t want to change any, the default is to use cross fade (one picture fades into view while the other fades out of view). I recommend not trying to use all of the transitions available because your slideshow may become very busy and distracting. Choose one or two transitions to primarily use (I like the cross fade or the fade to/from black transitions). Again, you can preview any changes before accepting them for use in your slideshow.

Your slideshow is almost complete (it had better be after the number of blogs devoted to this topic). You can now add background music and finalize your project before saving your slideshow in a viewable format. We’ll discuss all of this in the next blog or two.