How to make a photo slide show using Pinnacle Studio 10 on Windows XP First thing to do is the most obviousChoose the photos that you want to use.In “Edit” you can click on the “camera” tab on the left edge of the screen and then navigate to the folder on your computer that contains the photos you want to use. For the purposes of this tutorial I will assume that you have done any post production needed before you get to this point. In this case I am using some of the photos I took at this year’s Motor show.

Now drag and drop each photo that you want to use onto the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen. The default duration for each slide is 4 seconds but this can be changed by right clicking on the slide and choosing “clip properties”. You can use the counter in the top right corner of this dialog to change the duration of the photo. This dialog also allows you have the photo start from a zoomed position and then pan out to the whole photo or the other way if you prefer.

Once you have worked out the durations of all your photos and which effects if any you want to apply to the photos you can then move onto the next stage. These are your transitions between slides. This is the second tab on the left of screen.

Click and drag each transition that you want to use to the gap between each photo. This dictates how you want the photos to blend together from one to the next. There are too many options to mention them all but the variety is quite large. In Studio 10 I have three double pages of transitions to choose from.Now that you have your slideshow pretty much done it is time to add the extra little bits that make people think it is a professional job. The two that I find make the most difference are title and soundtrack.Now is probably a good time to switch from Storyboard to Timeline view which can be done through the View menu at top of screen.To add a title to your slideshow click on the third tab “T” and choose a title from those listed. Don’t worry about the actual text at this point as you can edit it to whatever you want. It is just like adding a layer in Photoshop. Just drag the title you want onto the timeline. If you want the title at the start of the slideshow then just drag it to the point before your first photo but if you want it to overlay then drag to the “T” part of the timeline as shown below. Double clicking on the title allows you to edit the title and change things like text, position, Font colour, size and effect along with duration. Remember that you can put a title on any slide you want throughout the slideshow.

Duration of any of your slides or transition can be changed in this view by simply dragging the right edge of each slide to the left or right. The last thing that really gives a photo slideshow is audio. Double clicking on the fourth row of the timeline will bring up a dialog that allows a voice over to be recorded. I have never done this and am thus unable to give any real clues as to how to go about it. You can also put a music soundtrack over the slideshow by clicking on the bottom tab or music symbol. You can then choose the music you would like to use by navigating the folder on your computer where your music is located. I have only ever used mp3’s and have not had any problems. If you want you can even choose from number of sound effects including laughter and crowd noises to add that little bit extra. Note that you can add more than one soundtrack to your slideshow. This means that you can have background music, voiceover and sound effects at the same time if that is what you want.

Again, just click and drag the music to the bottom of the timeline. Double click it to bring up the editing option to trim to the length of the slideshow and then edit the volume as shown in the two pictures below.

Once you have edited all the parts of your slideshow to your satisfaction it is time to click on the “Make Movie” tab at the top of screen.From here you can choose to output onto a disc that you can play in a DVD player or just output it to a file. I am guessing that this will then allow you to post it on a website. I have successfully burned to a disc but have never tried uploading to a website but I am certain it can be done. I believe that newer versions of Pinnacle Studio allow you to output as a flash file but I have not looked into it myself. This is obviously a really basic run down of how to set up a slideshow using this software but I have managed to do it quite successfully for a few family weddings just using shots that I have taken as a guest. With titles, good transitions and music everyone will think that you have spent days doing it. With practice it can be done quite quickly and easily and everyone will love it.I hope that this helps people get started on creating slideshows with their photos. I am sure that there are many other ways of doing the same thing but this is one that i have used and will continue to use until someone shows me an easier way.