1. When you start Photo Story the title screen gives you three options. The following slides will illustrate the directions when “Begin a new story” has been chosen. To begin, make sure the radio button is in front of “Begin a new story” and then click “Next” at the bottom of the screen. If you choose to “Edit a project”, a dialog box will open and you will be prompted to open a previously created Photo Story project. If you choose to “Play a story”, the project will open as a Windows Media file.

2. The first screen prompts you to import pictures into the project. When you click the button, a File Browser dialog box will appear and you can import pictures from a folder on your H drive, S drive, or removable disk source.

3. The directory tree of your computer will appear in the left column and thumbnails of photos will appear in the right window. You can select one or several photos from a particular folder. To select several photos from the same folder, click on the first photo you want and then hold down the Ctrl key and click on other photos. When you are finished, click OK and they will be added to the story board at the bottom of the screen. If you have photos in different folders, just repeat the process. Choose the Import Pictures… button and go to a different folder.

4. Once you have imported your photos, you can add text to the photos and you can choose the effect that will occur when the photo is on screen. Click on the photo in the story board and it will appear in the preview window. Go through your photos adding any text or changing the effects. When you are finished, click Next. Once your photos are in place, one of your choices is to “Customize Motion”. Choose the picture you wish to customize by clicking on it in the storyboard. Now click the “Customize Motion” link under the preview of the photo.

5. This is the customize motion dialog box. Everything is set as an automatic default. You can override the default motion by checking the box at the top, “Specify start and end position”. You can then move the resize markers to change the way the picture starts and ends during the show. The other option is at the bottom of the preview pane. You can change the length of time the photo stays on screen. When you finish, you will be prompted to save the picture with the changes.

6. The second Tab in Customize Motion is the Transition Tab. You can add transition effects to each photo. Scroll through the library of transitions to add any that you wish. When you are finished with Motion and Transition, you will have to Save the photo using the Save button on the bottom of the card. This adds the motion and transition to the photo.

7. You can add a musical track to your presentation. Prior to opening Photo Story, you should have either a musical CD handy, downloaded MP3 files, or ripped musical tracks from a CD. Choose the slide where the music is to begin by clicking on the picture on the filmstrip. Choose Select Music and open the file. A music bar will appear above the filmstrip which will show you how long the musical piece is. You can add as much music as you wish. If the initial song has not ended by a particular slide, you can add another song to that slide and the initial song will fade and the second song will begin. If you choose Select Music, a dialog box will appear with several choices of musical styles programmed into Photo Story. You can scroll through the styles and play the samples using the player on the box.

8. Once you have finished the music, the next screen is to save the project. The default settings are the best option at this point. The only item that you may want to change is the location of the saved file. It will take your project and integrate all the elements that you have created into a Windows Media File. This is the last step. Before exiting the program, save the project. This will save the finished project as a.wp3 file. If you wish to change the project at any time you can open Photo Story and choose “Edit a Project”.