Adjust slide duration to match music length? In PhotoStory?

[matt]

I want a quick way to throw a bunch of pictures and two songs together
to make a video slideshow. I want the photo duration to be
automatically adjusted to match the length of whatever song(s) I
choose.

Is this possible in MovieMaker? How about in PhotoStory?

I saw a post in this forum from a few months ago suggesting that
PhotoStory3 could do this, but I don't see the option.

Can anyone offer advice?

Or, if not possible, alternative software that is cheap or free?

Thanks!

Matt Kruse

 

[Guest]

Hi Matt.....use some mathematics.......put your numbers in place of mine.
Take the length of your two songs....say one is 3 min 12 seconds and the
second is 4 min 8 seconds. The total would be 7 minutes and 20
seconds.....or 440 seconds.
So that is the total length. Now lets say you have 88 pictures......you
would divide the seconds by the number of pics (440 / 88) which would equal
5 seconds per picture. Ok, now you know the length of each pic......before
you begin in Movie Maker go to the top and choose 'tools' and then 'options'.
You are offered the choice to set the 'picture duration' and the
'transition duration'. You want that to NET 5 seconds so you could choose 7
seconds for picture duration and 2 seconds for the transitions. This will
make each pic last 5 seconds. If you average length in seconds is an odd
amount (which is most likely)....just click on a few of the pics and change
the length a little to match the end of your song. To make is seamless,
right click on your last picture and choose 'fade out' so that it ends right
with the music.
Good luck.

 

[matt]

Hi Matt.....use some mathematics

Well, I know I can do it manually!

The problem is, if I add some pictures or decide to get rid of some, or
change to a different song, I have to start over.

In the event that I create slideshows like this regularly, I don't want
to go through all the manual hassle. I want the software to do the work
for me!

(And since a previous poster said PhotoStory3 *did* do this, I was
wondering how to do it, or if that post was in error)

Matt

 

[Rehan]

Photostory can do the *opposite*, it can truncate the music at the given
slide;s duration. Which is not what you want.

The problem is, if I add some pictures or decide to get rid of some, or
change to a different song, I have to start over.

Starting over is so simple; just press Ctrl-A (to select all in the
collections) and right-click -> Add to Storyboard.

As dickmr says you can do the maths once and then add *all* pictures in one
go. Unfortunately the Tools->options->Advanced dialog only allows setting
restricted values (whole secods). To overcome this problem I have made some
scripts to directly enter a fractional value of duration in the registry.
After that when you start movie maker, the fractional duration is used.

http://www.rehanfx.org/tips.htm

 

[Guest]

Matt,

PhotoStory will do this for you. Put together your slide show, drop a song
on the soundtrack and the program will adjust the length of display of the
photos.

Individual slides can also have their lengths adjusted manually if you want
some shots to be longer than others.

It should be noted that this only goes so far. If you have wayyy to many
slides for the length of the song, you will get some with silence at the back
end. You can take some out, or shorten the lengths of display manually.
--
Joe Pastori
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