10 Steps To Make A Photo-montage Video For YouTube

In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a one-minute photo-montage video with the free Pinnacle Videospin software and upload it to YouTube. You will be guided through 10 simple steps and each step will be described in detail.

A photo-montage video is basically putting together pieces of photographs, pictures or images on a video format.

Some may call it a photo-slide or slide-show video but whatever its name, it is the easiest and fastest way to make your first video for the Web. It's a lot of fun and you don't need any video clips. All you need are some photos and a few minutes of your time.

Videospin is brought to you by Pinnacle Systems Inc., and is offered as a free 148 MB download from http://www.videospin.com.

Pinnacle Videopsin is an excellent introduction to basic home video editing. As a free video editor based on the award-winning Pinnacle Studio(TM) software, it is specially created for users who do not want to spend much money or time making movies.

The application is amazingly easy and fun to use. You can perform simple edits and output movies for use online in minutes using your own video clips and photos. And it does the job pretty well compared with many of the free video-editing tools available on the Internet.

While the basic VideoSpin program is free, some video and audio codecs may have to be purchased after the 15-day trial period. This is the optional Advanced Codec Pack that includes mpeg-2, mpeg-4, DivX, MP3, Dolby Digital and AAC audio. These video codecs cost $14.99.

However, you don't have to buy it. Unlike many video editing programs that shut down after the trial period, Pinnacle Video will continue to work with the basic video codecs such as avi, mpeg-1, Real Media and Windows Media. And these codecs are more that sufficient to make your videos and upload them to the Web.

1. Download and install Pinnacle Videospin application from http://www.videospin.com/

The 148 MB file size should be completed within 5 to 30 minutes depending on your connection speed.

2. Have a story for your video - something that your intended audience would like to see.

3. Get some interesting photos, pictures or images that are relevant to your story, put them into a folder and place the folder in the desktop for easy access.

Note:

For a one-minute video, you'll need about 15 photos as Pinnacle Videospin set the default viewing duration for still images at 4 seconds (15 x 4 = 60 seconds). However, you can change this viewing duration to suit your needs.

4. Optimize your photos for the Web. The goal is to make the photos fill video screen without any black borders. YouTube video screen has a 4:3 aspect ratio and if you have a vertical picture, you will get a black border on both sides of your picture. If you do not want this effect, you either resize or crop your photos before you edit them for the video.

After uploading your video to YouTube, your video is resized to 320x240 pixels, and encoded to Flash 7 at a data rate of approximately 250 kbps and audio is compressed to MP3 (22.050 KHz, monophonic).

It's very important that you keep an aspect ratio of 4:3, otherwise the quality of your video will be degraded. Flash 7 codec performs best when the frame width and height use multiples of 16. This is optimal for video playback.

5. Get ready your favorite background music in .wav or .mp3 format. A video without music or sound is very unappealing.

6. Go to http://www.youtube.com/signup and create a new account if you do not have one yet. It's very easy. All you need is a valid email address, your unique username, password and location. It's totally free. Now, you are all set to make your first video and upload it to YouTube.

7. Please be aware that a one-minute video footage can take up to 250MB of your disk space. So make sure you have that amount of free disk space in your PC to work your video.

1. Start Videospin and Create A New project

In the Album window (top left corner of screen), click on the Photos section.

Click and drag the photos to the Movie Window (or time-line) and place them on the main Video track. Rearrange the photos by dragging and dropping them in the order you want them to play.

From the Album Window, click on Transitions.

Pinnacle Videospin offers you 74 transition effects to choose from. Drag transitions in between the photos to merge them together for a smoother change from one scene to another.

You can also use transitions at the beginning or end of the assembled footage.

From the Album Window, click on Titles and it opens with 18 title templates for you to choose from. After selecting the title template, drag it to the main Video track or onto the Title track.

Placing the title on the main Video track will display the title full-screen on a solid black background.

Placing it on the Title track will make it an overlay and the title is superimposed on the image located above the spot where you have placed the title.

Double-click the title to edit it. The Title Editor window appears and you can choose the fonts types, size and color to suit your video theme.

You can also position where you want the title to appear on the screen. Pinnacle VideoSpin also supports rolls and crawls effects.

With the Title Editor, you can place titles or information on any spot of your assembled footage by double-clicking on the title track (on the time-line) at the spot beneath the video or image scene where you want the titles or information to appear. You can then create your own titles from scratch.

Give your movie a definite ending by adding credits or messages at the end of your video.

You can also add transitions to the title clips just like you use them on the main video track permitting titles to dissolve or fade onto the main video track to enhance effects. 

From the Album, click on Sound Effects if you want to add pre-recorded sound effects onto your movie. Pinnacle VideoSpin comes ready with some high-quality sound effects. Simply drag sound effects onto the time-line sound effects track.

Similarly, you can add background music by using music files onto the Music track. You can use audio files that you have recorded yourself or obtained from other sources.

The formats supported are wav, mp3, avi, mpa and wma. You can only edit the duration and volume of your sound clips. 

To edit duration the sound or music will play, click the end of the audio track and drag it to the left to shorten it.

To fade the sound/music, click the volume line in the middle of the audio track at the spot where you want it to start to fade. A little square will appear on the volume line. Then click at the end of the audio track, drag the little square downwards to lower the volume. At this stage you're almost done. 

Now, go to the Player window and play back to preview the entire video you have just arranged.

Edit and rearrange your work as many times as you want. When you have done all the editing and you're satisfied with your creation, you click the "Make Movie" tab.

At the "Make Video" window, click on "Web", choose under window "Upload To This Web Site" for YouTube. Videospin has preset for Best Quality a 384x288 pixels frame size, a transfer data rate of 300 Kbits/second, 25 frames/sec and audio is set for wma, 16 bit stereo, 44.1 kHz. Click the Create button.

Uploads usually take 1-5 minutes per MB on a high-speed connection, and converting your video takes a few minutes. 

This opens the Web Upload dialog box, where you can enter editorial information about your movie you have just created.

You need to set the title, description and comma-separated search tags as desired, then check the category in which your movie should be listed.

That's it! You have created your first video or movie. Break a leg! 

Sit back and relax and let Videospin "render" (generate video frames in the output format for) any titles, transitions and sound/music you have added to your production.

This will take a couple of minutes depending on the length of your movie. Once it is completed your movie will appear live on YouTube for viewing by potential millions of Internet users.

Congratulations! You've created your own video with the Free Pinnacle Videospin.

Now that you know the steps, go to your pc's storage and get out all those interesting pictures that you like to show off to your family and friends, and the huge Internet community. If you like them, surely others will like them too!