Photo Story3 is a free Microsoft Software for presenting a slide show in a video format enhanced by animations, music, and narration. The software can be used to reflect the outcomes of workshops, meetings, conferences, training sessions or presentations in an engaging way. The pictures and captions illustrate the events, zooming and panning let the audience observe the images in closer details, the narration allows storytelling and the music binds it all together. Those who have stage fright during presentations can especially benefit from using this program, thanks to the narration function. Storing and distributing the reports is also simple. The files can be saved in .wmv format and then be shared in the preferred modality.
User experience:
Pros
Cons
The software is very easy to use; the wizard format takes even the least experienced users easily through the creating process.
The panning and zooming feature is very useful and powerful to present detail or an overview of the image.
The editing features are useful in enhancing picture quality (especially cropping and border remover) without using another graphic program.
Unless the user works on a lot of details, a slideshow can be created in a matter of a few minutes. The saved file is not too large and saves quickly.
Narration and music can run at the same time.
The software is free.
The volume of one piece of music cannot change throughout the slideshow.
The user cannot set his or her defaults in terms of motion and transition, so the user either accepts the defaults of the program or adjusts each slide individually, which might be very tedious with hundreds of pictures.
Comparison with Movie Maker:
Movie Maker is a similar, free software developed by Microsoft. Although Photo Story3 works only with pictures unlike Movie Maker which is also compatible with video files, the outcome is rather similar: A video presentation of images (still or moving), enhanced by transitions, titles, music and narration.