Software for making photos to video

Big Mike · May 3, 2005

I'm planning on making a slide show / video for my wedding. I'm going to use a bunch of still photos but I want to have them move...or pan across the screen. Not just transitions...I've tried different things in Powerpoint and I don't think that will work for what I want. You see this all the time on TV when news or tabloid shows are using still photos to make their story.

The format could be some sort of computer video or just DVD.

Does anyone know of some software that I could use to create something like this?

Meysha · May 3, 2005

Do you mean that you want to actually zoom in on a part of the photo and then pan across the photo and then zoom out to show the whole thing?

Big Mike · May 3, 2005

Yes, that's basically what I want to do. I might not need to zoom out & show the whole photo but I definitely want to pick the zoom level and have the photo pan across the screen.

K_Duffer · May 3, 2005

I think Adobe Premiere Elements can do what you want--although I have not figured out how to use it.

I've used this program in the past and gotten good results:

http://www.photo2vcd.com/

I believe what you want is the "Ken Burns effect" which this software does great.

You can download a trial version from the website.

heip · May 4, 2005

Check out Proshow Gold. It's great for what you want. There is a trial version to see if you like.

Nikon Fan · May 4, 2005

Adobe Premier is good but expensive, and hard to use if you have no prior editing knowledge. Final Cut Pro IMO is the best video editing software. I think for what you are wanting to do though you should be able to use windows movie maker if you have it on your computer. I've done this before and it's quite simple. I know that you can do it in powerpoint, but it will take a lot more work and effort probably. If you want to try powerpoint, there should be a custom animation in which you can select a motion path, you select your pic, then create the custom path that you want the photo to move in...

Big Mike · May 5, 2005

I tried a few things in Powerpoint but I didn't find a custom motion path...I'll have another look.

duck4321 · Dec 9, 2005

i think i'm one of the few people here who is doing more video then still images. there are a few ways to do this. the first and easyest is to just get a tripod and shoot it from the camera. a lot of professionals do this, it can look better and more realistic then just useing motion in premier. and on to premier, you could buy the program, but really just for one project is not worth the cost. however, if you do get premier or any of the others (final cut for mac, vegas, avid) they all have a "motion" ability. i would say try premier elements, i've never used it, but look for something that lets you do motion and key frames. if you put it onto a DVD just remember to save it as a MPEG2. hope that helps.

Kent Frost · Dec 9, 2005

Sony Vegas is terrific for stuff like this. Once again, however, it's pricey.

Big Mike · Dec 9, 2005

I did end up using Power Point. I can't remember how many photos I put in, but it was over 10 minutes long and I did my best to make it seem like a movie rather than a plain slide show. Something always moving in or out of the frame with different movements & fades...only pausing on special images that really brought out the emotion.

It wasn't quite what I envisioned before I started but everyone seem to really like it...so it was a success.

afghanjohn · Dec 22, 2005

I used Adobe Premiere 6.0 to produce a short one minute slide show with video, music and graphics. I decided againt panning the photographs or zooming them, but it's not hard to do in with Premiere. I used the technique for panning photographs for moving the word Afghanistan in the video.

If the link works, here is where you can view it:

http://www.kabulmedia.com/samples/videos/kfmpromo01.wmv