One of the most often-asked and troublesome questions we get is “How do I keep my pictures in the order I want?” You see, although you can drag pictures around into any order you please, it only takes one click on ‘Sort By Date’ or ‘Sort By Name’ to lose all that manual sorting work you just did. And, if you use the Gift CD feature, the pictures will be shown in filename order on the Gift CD, not your manual order. In a previous article, we wrote instructions on how to rename your photos while they are in the order you want. Then, any time they are sorted by name, everything is cool. But, what if you don’t want to rename them?
We’ve written several articles on the topic of sorting and slideshows:
- Sorting Folders vs. Sorting Pictures within a Folder
- Keeping your Pictures in Order,
- Picasa Tip: Slideshows with Music
- Picasa Tip: Sorting Pictures in Reverse Chronological Order
Why not Make a Movie?!
Your first step needs to be selecting the group of pictures you want to show. Once the group has been identified, and shown as an album, then you can play a slide show, or use the command Create->Gift CD. But, there is another choice. Right below Gift CD is Movie. You can create a movie from a selection of pictures – they don’t even need to be in an Album. Once you click Movie, you’ll see a screen like the picture above. Notice all the pictures are on a timeline at the bottom. You can drag pictures into any order your heart desires. When the movie is rendered you will have one file, a .wmv file (windows) or .mov (Mac) that will play on anyone’s computer and the pictures order cannot be changed. For more information on Picasa’s Movie Making function, see this past article: Picasa Tip: Make a Movie
Putting your Movie on a DVD
Once you have a completed movie file, you can use DVDMaker on windows to burn the movie onto a DVD that can be played on any DVD player. See this past article on DVD of Pictures that plays on your TV. On Macintosh, iDVD used to be the free, included app akin to DVDMaker. It is no longer available. If you have it already, it still works fine. Here’s what MacMost (a Macintosh resource I trust) has to say about alternatives to iDVD.
Geeks on Tour Member Videos
- How to make a Gift CD with Picasa
- How to Make a Movie with Picasa
- pics45.Keeping your Slideshow in a Specified Sort Order
- pics47.Playing Slideshows with Music
- Using a digital Photo Frame (no membership required)
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