It wasn’t so long ago that making a movie like the one below would takes hours, days, maybe even weeks to put together. It would also take some very expensive and specialized equipment. Now, with Picasa’s face recognition feature, it’s just a single click on a button called Face Movie!
Select Pictures from a People Album
You need to have Face Detection turned on and some faces identified in People Albums in order to use this feature. If, at some time in the past you decided you didn’t want Face detection, you can turn it back on with Tools –> Options –> Name Tags –> Enable Face Detection.
Assuming you do have a few People Albums, take a look at the buttons next to the thumbnail of that person, you will see 4 buttons.
Play – to play a slideshow of all the pictures of that person,
Collage – to make a photo collage using all the pictures of that person
Movie – to create a regular movie of the pictures of this person
Face Movie – to create a special movie where the person’s face appears in the same spot when transitioning from one picture to the next
So, just click that button and you will be taken to the Movie Making page, with all the pictures of that person selected (or whatever pictures you pre-selected.) Here is where you will see a few options also. All the pictures have been placed on a timeline. First you’ll want to click the green play arrow and take a look at the movie, then you might try playing with a few of the settings.
Add Music
You’ll definitely want to find a piece of music and ‘Load…’ it into the Audio Track. Notice the audio options to truncate the music, Fit Photos into Audio, or Loop Photos to Match Audio. They each have their place. If you have an audio clip that is the right length for your number of pictures, then Fit Photos into Audio is great, your pictures will end exactly when the music ends.
If you intend to upload your movie to Youtube, you’ll need to be careful to choose a copyright free track. I found mine at www.freestockmusic.com
Arrange Pictures
You can drag pictures around on the timeline, you can even remove them by clicking the X at the left. You can also create title slides by clicking the icon above the red X.
The Finished Movie
When your movie looks good, finish it by clicking the Create Movie button. This will produce a .wmv file completely independent of the original pictures. You can copy that .wmv file to any computer device, or you can burn it to a DVD movie using something like DVD Maker. You can even upload it to Youtube, with the handy button provided.
Geeks on Tour Members should watch the following videos for more info: