Panning, Zooming and Flying Away
by Gary Woods

Probably the coolest program I've seen lately is called Photo Story and it's one of eight applications in the Microsoft Plus Digital Media Edition pack, which sells for $19.95. Photo Story turns digital photographs into professional-looking slide shows. Unlike every other slide show program I've seen this one pans across photos and zooms in or out, much like the effects you'd see in a Ken Burns documentary. Your static photos really come to life allowing you to focus in on a particular part of a picture and then pull back to reveal the context of the image.

The transitions between the slides are limited to a simple dissolve, which works well with the pan-and-zoom presentation and gives a great look. Also, to enhance your presentation Photo Story can have a slide-by-slide narration or an audio soundtrack.

The default pans and zoom are great, but the advanced settings allow you to control the start and end points and the duration of each animation. With these features you can decide whether to focus in or pull back and reveal a larger context. Or, you can just cruise across an image right to left, left to right, up, down, or diagonally.

When you're album is complete you can burn a Video CD or create a WMV file that you can play using Windows Media Player 9. With all those pictures you've taken, you need to show them off, so get to it.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910