Wondershare Photo Story Platinum

Introduction
About Photo Story Platinum
Download and Installation
Using Photo Story Platinum
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

For users with tons of pictures, it's always a challenge to show and share pictures in ways that are different, yet easy to create. One great option is to create a slideshow from the pictures with a cool style and some music and titles, and then burn them on a DVD, or save them in a format compatible with the iPod, Zune, etc.

Doing so however is not always easy, and that's where Photo Story Platinum, the product we are reviewing now can help.

About Photo Story Platinum

Photo Story Platinum is from Wondershare, a company based in Guangdong, China that creates custom programs for the enterprise market. Ourpix is their foray into the photos and movies market. Learn more about their products and download a free trial version of Photo Story Platinum from their site.

Photo Story Platinum imports your pictures, and then provides around 200+ built-in movie-styled effects to convert them to a slideshow. You can also add music, text titles and captions, and even animated clip art. The output file formats are AVI, MPG, WMV, MP4, and 3GP video formats which can be easily shared on iPod, iPhone, Youtube, Zune, and more. The output slideshow movies can also be burned with or without 16:9 widescreen format attributes to DVDs that can be played without access to a computer.

Our contact at Wondershare for this review was Jane. Thank you, Jane.

Download and Installation

Download the installer, run the setup routine and follow the instructions. You'll end up with a Wondershare program group in your Windows Start menu, as shown in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Wondershare Start menu Group

Using Photo Story Platinum

Follow these steps to get started with Photo Story Platinum:

1. Go to your Windows Start menu and choose All Programs | Wondershare | Photo Story Platinum | Wondershare Photo Story Platinum, as shown in Figure 1, above.
2. Doing so opens the Photo Story Platinum interface, as shown in Figure 2, below. Notice the four tabs on the top:
3. Photo Set, Style, Decoration, Create
4. With the Photo Set tab active, browse to a folder on your system, as shown in Figure 2, below.
5. 
   Figure 2: Photo Story Platinum Interface
3. Choose the pictures you want to be added, and click on the Add Photo button, as shown in Figure 2, above. Add pictures from more folders if required, and similarly, add audio and change the background.
4. Now, click the Style tab. Here, you can preview and apply readymade styles to the movie, as shown in Figure 3, below. Double-click to apply the style, a preview of the applied style can be seen in a window towards the right side.
5. 
   Figure 3: Style Tab
5. The next tab is Decoration. Here, you add stylized text, animated and still clip art, and effects. Once you choose any of the decorative items, select them, and drag-drop them to the timeline, as shown in Figure 4, below.
6. 
   Figure 4: Decoration tab
6. The final tab is Create, as shown in Figure 5, below. You can preview the story one last time before you are happy to go ahead and create a video or a DVD out of it.
7. 
   Figure 5: Create tab
7. Save the movie.

Pricing and Support

Photo Story Platinum costs $39.95 for a single-user license and is available as a multiple-user license product as well.

Support is through email, online FAQ, phone, and user forums.

Conclusion

Photo Story Platinum does have a great price: performance ratio, and even if you have a similar product, you do end up with 200 extra styles that can make your output videos look more contemporary and different.