This appeared in the NY Times

Multimedia Tools

On Windows

Q. Is there a set of programs in Windows XP to make movies and photo slide shows the way the iLife programs do on the Mac?

A. Apple Computer includes its own iLife suite of programs on the Macintosh computers it sells, and this multimedia toolbox currently includes iPhoto (for making slide shows, editing photos, ordering prints and other picture-related tasks) and iMovie HD (for importing and editing video and making your own movies). Windows XP includes basic software for working with pictures and video.

The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, which is usually the default program in Windows XP for looking at images, lets you do simple things like rotating a photo’s orientation or making a minimal slide show from all the pictures in a folder. The Windows XP Task Pane that appears when the My Pictures folder is opened also lists several options for your photos, like ordering prints online or burning them to a CD.

If you want to move beyond these basic tools to more full-featured programs for making musical slide shows and slickly produced movies, there is no shortage of software for Windows. For example, Google’s free Picasa program (picasa.google.com) lets you make slide shows and save them to a CD, and has other photo editing and organization tools.

Adobe’s Photoshop Elements program for Windows ($90 at www.adobe.com/products; a free 30-day tryout is available) lets you create, edit, organize and customize slide shows. The company also makes a $100 movie-editing program, Adobe Premiere Elements; both programs can be bought together for $150.

Photo slide show programs like PhotoParade (www.photoparade.com/index.asp) and PhotoShow (www.simplestar.com) are other options designed for home users, and each costs less than $40. As for editing and producing your own home video, consumer-oriented (and priced) software like Pinnacle Studio (www.pinnaclesys.com) and Ulead VideoStudio (www.ulead.com) let you make movies for less than $100.

Questions about computer-based technology may be sent to QandA @nytimes.com. This weekly column will address questions of general interest, but e-mail and letters cannot be answered individually.
More Articles in Technology »

__________________
"What you hear in a great jazz band is the sound of democracy. “The jazz band works best when participation is shaped by intelligent communication.”
Harmony happens whenever different parts get to form a whole by means of congruity, concord, symetry, consistency, conformity, correspondence, agreement, accord, unity, consonance…….