Make a Photo Slide Show With Music Using PhotoJam

Multimedia scrapbooks allow you to integrate legally downloadable music with your photographs, and then incorporate that information into a slide show. You can then configure your slideshow with cool background colors, and you can specify how often you want the images in your slideshow to change from one to the next. After you save your slideshow, you have several options. You can e-mail it to friends, burn it to a CD, or even post it on your Web site. One of the most popular, if not the most popular, slideshow products is PHOTOJAM 4 from Sony.

Click the Create button. A Browse for Folders box opens.

Choose the folder that contains the photos you want to use and then click the names of the photos you want to add to your slide show. The photos load and appear as a series of thumbnails in PHOTOJAM.

Select a Transitions effect by clicking Transitions. You can choose from effects such as Dissolve (where one picture dissolves into the next) or Fade (where one picture fades out until the next image appears).

Pick a style. The style you choose determines how your photos will appear and whether they have any tint or special effects coloring.

Select music. A menu of available music appears, listed by genre (Pop, Rock, Alternative, Jazz, Classical, etc.) and by title of track.

Pick a track and then click on its name. The track plays in PhotoJam.

Play your new photo slide show with the musical track you selected by clicking Watch.

Close the preview by clicking your mouse over the slide show. A white strip appears, with Edit, Share and Menu blue buttons.

Select Share. A How would you like to share your PhotoJam: box appears. In the box, select your method of distribution from the list of options and click Share.

Tips

• PhotoJam gives you lots of share options. You can e-mail your new music and photo slide show as a link, save it as an html page for posting on your own Web site, prepare it to burn to a CD, create it as an ?Executable? file that will automatically open when you click on the file name, turn it into a screen saver, or even prepare your new PHOTOJAM file so you can watch it on your television set. Depending on your choice, PhotoJam will start the process you have selected for sharing your slide show.

Warnings

• Just because you have paid for music online does not mean that you automatically have the right to include it in a slide show or other fun multimedia product. On compilation CDs, or in slide show software, the company issuing the product has, more than likely, contracted with songwriters for unlimited distribution. Yet reading the fine print is never a bad idea. In some cases, your only vulnerability will be if you make your own CD with musical background from legal sources, and then sell it.