HOT, please help! blurry pictures

[Guest]

I used the Microsoft movie maker to make a picture slide show of my mother,
but when i expanded the viewer the pictures became all blurry. what caused
this and how do i fix it. Also i was trying to download this to a cd but it
seems to take forever, i wasn't able to complete the download. is this
normal?
Please help, my mom just past away and i was doing this for her funeral
service on saturday (4/22).

 

[Yves Alarie]

Unfortunately there is not much you can do.
The picture quality in Movie Maker, when you try to expand to fit the
screen, is never going to be great, no matter how good the still pictures
are.
You may be better to display the still pictures using the slide show
function of Windows Pictures and Fax Viewer. The quality of the pictures
will be much better, but obviously you will not get the features available
with Movie Maker.

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

You might also consider using Photo Story 3, a free download that does
"Ken Burns"-like pan and zoom effects. It can handle up to 300 photos,
and will apply transitions and effects randomly, for an "instant" slide
show that looks quite professional.

It can support full computer monitor resolution, and can play background
music or narration along with the show.

Sorry to recommend changing horses at this late date, but you will have
to change to get full resolution, and Photo Story 3 is one of the most
automatic approaches.

Good luck!

-michael

 

[Yves Alarie]

Yes you can go with Photo Story 3. However the same thing will happen. Don't
try to fill the screen. Not going to happen. Even with a 5 MP photo.
Nice to use these tools to transform still photos into "videos" but the
limits are there. It is not going to happen if you want top notch resolution
at full screen.

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

Why do you say that, Yves? I've used Photo Story 3 to create 1280x960
..wmv's with no problem. That's pretty "screen-filling"...

I agree that there are lots of full-screen choices for simple
transitions, like cuts and dissolves, but I don't know of other
"pan and zoom" transition slide shows. Suggestions?

-michael

 

[Yves Alarie]

I think I expect maybe a little more quality.
I use Photo Story to create short stories to e-mail, not really for slide
shows as such. And you need to start with about 5 MP camera pictures to get
a "decent" quality.This is usually the problem resulting in poor quality,
not enough pixels to start with and nothing can remedy this problem.

I agree it is fun to pan and zoom etc. but at this point I prefer to simply
display the pictures with "no frills" available in Movie Maker or Photo
Story.

Supposedly the upcoming Windows Vista will have a much better Movie Maker
and the capability to copy directly to DVD. We shall see!

 

[Michael J. Mahon]

My experience is that as long as the resolution of the photo exceeds
that of the monitor, the quality is as good as it's going to get.

Of course, that must remain true if you zoom in. If your photos are
2048x1536, then you should be able to zoom in about 1.5:1 before a
1280x1024 monitor will show any thing less than full resolution.

Photo Story seems to use the video card texture mapping capabilities
to do its pans and zooms, so the quality of the video card may be an
issue.

-michael

I think I expect maybe a little more quality.
I use Photo Story to create short stories to e-mail, not really for slide
shows as such. And you need to start with about 5 MP camera pictures to get
a "decent" quality.This is usually the problem resulting in poor quality,
not enough pixels to start with and nothing can remedy this problem.

I agree it is fun to pan and zoom etc. but at this point I prefer to simply
display the pictures with "no frills" available in Movie Maker or Photo
Story.

Supposedly the upcoming Windows Vista will have a much better Movie Maker
and the capability to copy directly to DVD. We shall see!

--

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."

 

[Yves Alarie]

You are absolutely correct.
Zoom in and the problem starts.
And then the quality of the video card comes in.
Indeed, nice to zoom in but the pixels must be there and the quality of the
video card must be there.

Nice to have you around on this newsgroup.
We can all share and learn.

 

[Tom from WI]

I used Movie Maker for a slide & music show a couple of years ago. All of
the pictures I used were from scanning prints. We projected the slide show
onto a 15 foot wide screen and the pictures still looked good. Did Movie
Maker get messed up over the last two years?
Tom