Recording Narration with a Microphone in Photo Story 3

First you must have a microphone plugged into your computer and either speakers or headphones connected to use this feature of Photo Story 3.

1)  With your prepared script or by using the window on the narration screen to help you with your script, you should get ready to speak.

2)  Configure your microphone once it is attached to your computer by clicking on the “configure microphone” button and follow the on-screen prompts.

3)  Begin recording by clicking on the red “record” button. Make sure that the picture where you want the narration is highlighted in the timeline.

4)  Stop recording by clicking the “stop” button.

5)  If you made a mistake or just want to try recording the segment again, you can delete the narration by clicking on the “delete” button.

6) Click “next” to go to the next section. If you need to go back and make changes to any images in the story, press “back” and it will take you to the previous section.
 

The Following Notes (from the Help file in Photo Story 3) Provide Some Useful Information:

• If you exceed five minutes of narration for a picture, the recording stops and a message is displayed prompting you to narrate another picture.
   

• Each picture that has narration, edits, or other options specified will appear dimmed in the film strip. A narration symbol is displayed in the lower-left corner of pictures that include narration. An effects symbol is displayed in the lower-right corner of pictures for which you customized the motion. Pictures with narration or customized durations also show the length of time a picture will be displayed when the final story is played.
  
  
   

• You can proceed to the next Photo Story page without recording narration or customizing motion for one or more of your pictures. Photo Story generates the panning and zooming effects automatically for these pictures. By default, each of the pictures appears for five seconds when you play the story.
   
• Deleting the narration from a picture may change the length of time the picture is to be displayed.
   
• If you want to delete any of your pictures, right-click a picture, and then click the Delete button.
   
  
  
  Deleting a picture deletes the picture and all customizations, including audio, associated with the picture from the story.
   
• Photo Story calculates the approximate disk space required for your narration based on the number of pictures in your film strip. If there is not enough disk space in your temporary folder, Photo Story displays an error message. Before you can start recording narration, you must free additional space or choose a different folder.
   
• When you preview your story, the preview resolution is 320 x 240 pixels. Your final video story may have a different resolution depending on the activity you select when you save your story.
   
• You can save a project for your story at any time while working on the story by clicking the Save Project button. In the Save As dialog box, type a name for the project. You must save a project for your story to be able to edit it later. Projects created by using Photo Story 3 for Windows must use a .wp3 file name extension. Otherwise, Photo Story will not be able to open the file. By default, the project for your story is saved in your My Videos folder.

 USB Microphone Settings

When you first plug a USB microphone into a PC, you may need to change some audio settings to make sure the computer recognizes the microphone. In the Windows XP operating system, you should first go to the Start menu and click on Control Panel.

Next click on the Sounds and Audio Devices icon (as shown below left), or if you are in the Category view (as shown below right), click on the Sounds, Speech and Audio Devices link.

This will bring up the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties box. Click on the Audio tab.


 

Use the pull-down menu under the Sound Recording in the middle of the box and the name of your USB microphone should appear in the list. Make sure it is selected and then click Apply and OK.

Using a USB Microphone in Photo Story 3

In order to get better quality sound, you may choose to use a USB microphone to record your narration in Photo Story 3. When you click on the Record Narration button as shown below...  




an alert box will pop up that says that Photo Story needs to change audio settings so that you can use the USB microphone and asking if you want the settings to be changed.




If you click Yes, you will get an error message that says the settings cannot be changed.




However, if you click No, you will not get an error message and you may begin recording your narration. If you do not hear any sound when you preview the recording, make sure that the Sound recording setting in the Control Panel (see above) is set to the USB microphone.