Dates_picI came across this piece of free software from Microsoft recently which allows you to create a video in under ten minutes. No camcorder is required, just a digital camera for your own pictures. Nothing more than basic skills and a polished video is quickly produced from nothing more than one or more pictures from your photograph collection.

The following video was produced in ten minutes using six pics from my hard drive, text was added to the first and last pics and on the first frame the washout effect was used. Not very imaginative but effective. Here is another video showing what can be produced with a little bit more time and was produced by the people at Microsoft.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

Photo Story 3 is a free program and allows you to make videos from your pic files. The programs comes with the ability to add text, transitions, effects, music and voice narration. There are all sorts of uses that you can apply this program to such as photo documentaries, real estate tours, eBay auction promotions, how to videos, ‘this is your life’ videos and videos to place on video sharing sites.

The advantages of Photo Story 3 are:

Quick & Easy to use.
Free
Versatile

The disadvantages of Photo Story 3 are:

Only runs on Windows XP and Vista
Only outputs Windows Media format (.wmv) but can be converted using other programs
Background music must be sourced elsewhere.

Photo Story 3 is an amazing tool and has a lot of potential for making easy videos for many different purposes and is highly recommended.

Filed under: video production

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