One of Picasa’s newest features is the ability to create a Movie Presentation from a selection of videos and pictures. The feature allows you to customize the slide transitions, duration, and captions. This tool is excellent for those of you who like to create movie sideshows to upload to YouTube and/or to burn to a DVD for TV viewing. The how-to below will walk you through the movie creation process, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them below.
Note: You must have Picasa 3 to complete this tutorial and access these features. If you have Picasa 2 upgrade by downloading and installing Picasa 3
1. Select the pictures you wish to use for your movie and click the Create Movie Presentation icon
Note: You can also access the Create Movie Presentation option by clicking on Create > Movie… from the toolbar menu
2. The Movie tab allows you to customize your movie by allowing you to;
- Add an Audio track (click on Load… button to add music)
- Select Transitions for the slides/overlapping/speed (see below)
- Determine the Dimensions for the output file (see below, if you’re displaying the video on a wide screen, then you can set a wide screen resolution)
- The option to show captions (picture name & comments) throughout the slideshow
- Full frame cropping (crop to fit screen/no cropping)
3. Click on the Transition Style drop-box to select your desired transition
4. Use the sliders to adjust the Slide Duration and the % Overlap (opacity) during transitions.
5. Click on the Dimensions drop-down to select the width and height in pixels for your video, (the higher the number the better the quality), notice that the drop-down includes options for 720p and 1080p televisions.
Note: I recommend using the 720p & 1080p for screens displaying those resolutions, anything lower than that and the image may not look its best
6. You can check the box to display caption (Show Captions) and allow the program to automatically crop your picture (Full frame photo crop) to fit the frame specified in the previous step.
Note: I recommend leaving Full frame photo crop unchecked unless you don’t mind pictures of people being chopped up in different places.
7. Click on the Slide tab to specify how your captions will be displayed. In this section you can add to the captions, set formatting, and assign templates for the text displayed.
8. The Clips tab allows you to Add/Remove to your selection of ‘clips’ being used to compose your movie, we’re going to get more clips by clicking on the Get More… button
9. You will be brought back to your picture library, chose the pictures you wish to add and click on the Back to Movie Maker button located at the bottom of the library
10. Below the movie preview you can Delete or Add slides (you can add more blank slides with text by clicking on Add), you can also preview your movie by clicking on the Play button and/or moving the slide back and forth.
11. Once you are done editing your video you are presented with 3 options;
- Create Movie (which is what we did for this tutorial) – Simply generates your movie file
- Create Video and Upload to YouTube - This option will generate your video and prompt you for more options to upload to YouTube (see Step #15)
- Close – Need I say more?
12. Your preview will change to the display above as your video is generated. Generation time depends on the number and quality of pictures used and of course your computers’ capabilities.
13. Once the video is completed you can;
- Take Snapshot – Screenshot of a section of your video (screenshots will be stored under the Screenshot album)
- Upload to YouTube – Allows you to upload to YouTube (see #15 for instructions)
- Export Clip - Allows you to select a section of your video clip and export it as a separate file
14. A new Projects album will be created named Movies, click the album to access your new movie and future movie projects
15. When uploading to YouTube you will be prompted with this dialog box, fill out the appropriate sections, and click the Upload video button.
Article posted on 10 15th, 2008
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i want to burn the movies that i made from picasa but everytime i do it…. the dvd player cannot read or play those cd’s or dvd’s….. please tell me why…..evenif i use nero still it wont do……
@juditha longakit: What operating system are you using? If you’re using Vista you can follow this tutorial and burn the video you created using DVD Maker. Hope this helps.Please advise.
http://www.gilsmethod.com/burndvdphotoslidehowusingvista
http://www.gilsmethod.com/how_to_make_home_dvd_using_windows_vista
My video clip is only showing up as a photo with the opening image of the video.
What’s wrong?
@Isabel: Can you provide more information? Can you double-click the video and open it? Is it the video file. Please let me know so I can provide you with some help.
This is a very nice write-up. I just shared it with some friends who are interested in starting to make these.
My problem is that these ‘movies’ stall (get choppy) when playing sometimes, and I haven’t figured out the pattern as to why. I have a fairly new laptop from Dell using XP, and have a dual-core processor. I’ve closed all the major applications, and have tried running this under RealPlayer and Windows Media Player (which both give worse results). Any ideas?
@Lyn: Can you provide more details about your laptop and what fairly new is to you? What video card are you running? There is no reason for you to be experiencing this. Have you tried using that same video file on another computer? Does it give you the same choppiness you are experiencing with your laptop?
Please let me know so that I can better help you. By the way, thanks for sharing the article.
What I did to burn a DVD after making a picassa movie:
I exported the video to a folder and then I used windows movie maker (Windows XP)
I selected NTSC as the format and that was it =)
@Fernando: Thanks for the great tip…I have to brush up on my XP, it’s been a while – I only use it on Virtual machines for articles.
Hi,
I’m having problems exporting the file from picasa to any type of folder. I have Windows XP – 2007 version (I believe). Any advice? thanks!
I have the selected clips I want to use in the Video, but everytime i play the movie, or even create it, all it shows is the first image of the clip, not the whole video. Help please?
Does anyone know how to post the movie to your blog. I have tried a couple of things but the only thing that shows up is the first page. Thx
@pgm878: What error are you receiving? Is it a Picasa error? Please provide more information. Thank you.
@Lindsey: What blogging platform are you using? Blogger, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal? Please specify – also are you hosting the video or is the video being hosted by YouTube. Your answers will help me help you.
@Tara: I just attempted what you described, created a movie presentation from two video presentations that were previously created and I was able to create one video file with both, the video played back just fine. Is this what you are trying to accomplish? Please let me know to see if we can figure this one out.
I am using blogger. I did not upload my video to YouTube. I uploaded it to my online Picasa album. The video plays fine from the album. Thx
@Lindsey: Glad it worked out. Thanks for following up.
Hey it’s me again! Yes, when you double click it it opens and I think it’s the fact that it’s an .mov file.
What can I do?!
p.s. it will not play in “Create a movie presentation” Only from my library with a double click.
I created a movie from still shots. It plays great and I can send it to my friends. I tried to export it as an HTML page because I want to put it on my website but I only get one image. I clicked off the option of “full movie” in the dialog box and have tried this several time with no luck. Can you help? Thanks.
@Isabel: I take it that the mov file you’re referring to was created by your digital camera when you shot video correct? I’ve tried repeating what you are attempting to do…use an mov file with a slideshow and it does not work. I’m not sure that it is supported with Picasa, I’ll do a little digging.
Have you tried using a WMV file instead? This is the format that Picasa uses for the video slideshows it generates. Please let us know if you are able to resolve and I’ll let you know if I find anything.
@Ivonne: Which browser are you using? I tried the following in Firefox, Chrome, and Internete Explorer. The only one that worked was internet explorer. There are other ways to embedd videos onto your website that will help you circumvent what appears to be a shortcoming. Please let me know the browser you are using and if you were able to resolve it with Internet Explorer.
I prefer Firefox but can use IE. IE is unreliable for me so if there is a way to use Firefox it would be great!
Thank you!
I will try IE and get back to you.
@Yvonne: Thanks for getting back to me. Good luck!
Yes, it works with .wmv (That was my old camera’s formatting.)
But with this camera I guess I’ll have to find a way to convert.
I tried IE but that didn’t work either. Is there a number I can call for Picasa help?…being free software I doubt it.
Or do you know where I can get a free photo slide show viewer that I can integrate into dreamweaver?
Thanks for any help or advice.
@Yvonne: Have you tried embedding the video as video file into your website? What CMS/blogging platform are you using? Maybe I can help you.
You are correct about the calling Picasa statement. No number that I’m aware of. Let me know thanks.