Create Easy DVD Slide Shows With Your Digital Images Using Movie Maker
A lot of customers ask me, “can you guys make a slide show with captions and music?”. I say NO. But! Here’s a real easy way to do so:
Well, it’s easy if you have Vista and Windows Movie Maker. That’s what I use. If you don’t have this, then I recommend Adobe Elements. It’s about 100$, and it’s a great tool. And, I’m sure there’s a lot of freeware out there too, but 1. the good ones are hard to find, and 2. the good ones are only free for the first x days.
Anyway, go ahead, open Windows Movie Maker:
Do you have your images organized? Good. Next you’ll need to import those images into Movie Maker. What I do is open the Folder the photos are in, then just drag them into the blank area in Movie Maker:
Now you have imported your images into Movie Maker, and what you want to do is drop them into the Timeline. So, click on the first image, then select all (Ctrl+A or “Edit -> Select All). Now just drag them down into the Timeline, specifically into “Video” area:
If you don’t like the order, simply click and hold a particular image in the Video timeline, and drag it to the position you want.
What about music? Same thing: open your Folder that holds your music file, and drop it in the same place you put your photos:
And, again, you need to take your music file and then drop it in the Audio/Music timeline. This is what your timeline should look like now:
Alright, my slideshow is only 50 seconds long, but the music goes on for another 5mins. Here’s what to do. Scroll all the way to the end of your song:
See that arrow pointing left? Click and drag to trim the music clip:
Beauty. I have the music stop where the images stop. But now there’s a problem. The music stops abruptly. To fix this, here’s what you can do. Right click on the song (in the Audio/Music timeline) and choose Fade Out option:
Great. Next, lets fancy it up a bit. Lets add some transition effects. On top left hand side of Movie Maker you’ll see a bunch of tasks, click on Edit / Transitions or Edit / Effects:
Play around, and see which ones you like. Once you picked the Effects and Transitions you like, you now need to drop them into your timeline. But, make sure to drag and drop in between each image:
Yeah, you have to drag and drop your Effect and Transition to each image. I looked around everywhere, and I couldn’t find a faster way to do this. Anyway, here’s what your timeline should be looking like:
So, you have Effect and Transition dragged and dropped into your Video timeline. Oh, make sure to click the “+” link right next to Video to see more.
Now, time for captions. In the same are where you found Effects and Transitions, you’ll see Titles and credits. Click the link and open those options:
So, to add a caption on to a particular image, chose what image you want that caption to go on, and then click, Title on the selected clip (see above). And go ahead and enter your caption:
And go ahead, Add title. Also, you can see “Change the text font and color” if you like to make any changes to that.
Play the slide show, and if its what you want all you need to do is Publish it. Again, on your left side in the Tasks, you’ll see, Publish to. To make a DVD, go ahead and click the DVD link:
…and to burn it onto DVD, just follow the direction they give you.
And, the final masterpiece:
That’s it. Any questions just email me, info@scancanada.ca.
K.
